WHAT'S  THE  MATTER 
WITH  MEXICO? 


BY 

CASPAR  WHITNEY 

M » 

AUTHOR  OF  "THE  FLOWING  ROAD," 
"HAWAIIAN  AMERICA,"  ETC. 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 
1916 

All  rights  reserved 


WJ 


COPYRIGHT,  1916. 
BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published,  October,  1916. 


that  abused  group  of 
Countrymen,  driven  from 
their  homes  and  denied  the  pro- 
tection of  their  Government— 
which  protection,  if  afforded, 
would  long  ago,  without  war,  have 
brought  peace  to  desolated 
Mexico— this  little  book  is  dedi- 
cated with  genuine  sympathy. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

THE    QUESTION    .........       1 

WHO   ARE   THE   MEXICANS? 2 

MAKING  A  MISFIT  CONSTITUTION  ....  7 

THE  REVOLUTIONARY  HABIT 18 

THE  SUBMERGED  80  PER  CENT 43 

THE  MAN  AND  THE  JOB  —  DIAZ  —  MADERO    76 

WHEN  THE  AMERICANS  WENT  TO  MEXICO  .  90 

WHAT  Is  A  CONCESSION? 118 

WHEN  CARRANZA  CAME  TO  TOWN   .     .     .  127 

UNDER   PRE-CONSTITUTIONAL   CONDITIONS    .  141 

THE  MEDITATIONS  OF  A  THEORIST   .     .     .  161 

,DUM-DUMS  IN  THE  NAME  OF  HUMANITY  .  179 

'WHAT  MEXICO  NEEDS 184 

THE  COST  OF  A  DUTY-LAST  POLICY  .     .     .  200 

THE    ANSWER 211 


WHAT'S  THE  MATTER 
WITH  MEXICO? 


THE  QUESTION 

IN  Mexico  both  native  and  foreigner 
are  in  distress ;  in  America  perplex- 
ity rules  as  to  cause,  and  confused  dis- 
cussion as  to  the  action  we  should  take 
for  the  safety  of  our  citizens  and  the 
help  of  the  Mexicans. 

What  is  this  trouble?  Why  are  our\ 
troops  along  the  border,  and  in  Mexico, 
without  the  consent  and  against  the 
protest  of  the  revolutionist  First  Chief 
whom  the  Government  of  the  United 
States  recognised  ?  Why  are  the  Amer- 
ican people  called  on  to  share  if  not  to 
solve  the  problem  of  its  sadly  deranged 
neighbour  ? 

The  Mexicans  have  a  Constitution  as 
lofty  in  sentiment  and  as  comprehen- 
sive in  scope  as  our  own ;  and  have  had 
since  1857.  Why  does  not  this  Con- 
stitution guide  them  to  the  political 
peace  it  provides?  ^ 


WHO  ARE  THE  MEXICANS? 

rilO  understand  the  present  state  of 
JL  Mexico  you  must  understand 
Mexican  conditions ;  and  to  understand 
Mexican  conditions  you  must  under- 
stand Mexican  character.  To  under- 
stand Mexican  character  you  must 
know  the  blood  mixture  which  flows  in 
his  veins ;  and,  if  you  would  escape  false 
and  misleading  notions,  you  must  com- 
prehend, deeply,  for  things  in  Mexico 
are  not  often  what  they  seem  to  be  to 
the  onlooker. 

The  aborigines  were  not  chiefly 
"  Indians,"  as  we  are  wont  casually  to 
call  them,  but  Aztecs,  Toltecs,  Zapo- 
tecs  —  that  numerous,  sturdy  race 
which  there  and  in  Peru  left  architec- 
tural and  engineering  monuments  re- 
vealing art,  inventive  genius,  and  me- 
chanical skill  to  prove  them  a  people 
apart  from,  and  above  in  culture,  the 
roving  Redmen  of  the  North.  But 
there  were  Indians  also  in  this  earliest 
period,  Yaquis  and  Apaches  in  the 
2 


Who  Are  the  Mexicans?          8 

Northwest,  and  many  small  tribes  of 
many  tongues  along  the  west  coast  and 
in  the  South,  the  descendants  of  whom, 
the  ethnologists  say,  are  to-day  repre- 
sented by  the  something  like  one  hun- 
dred and  twenty-five  tribes,  speaking 
fifty  different  dialects,  that  are  dis- 
tributed in  limited  numbers  throughout 
the  country  but  more  especially  along 
and  just  behind  the  western  littoral. 

Commonly  and  comprehensively  we 
refer  to  all  these  aboriginal  races,  and 
to  their  pure  descendants,  as  Indians ; 
and  if  the  reference  is  loose,  yet  it  has 
the  value  of  distinguishing  between  the 
peoples  that  were  originally  on  the  soil 
and  those  which  have  come  through 
cross  breeding. 

These  scattered  tribes  differed  little 
if  any  from  those  of  North  America  in 
character  or  habit ;  but  the  Aztecs  and 
allied  peoples  are  set  down  by  the  his- 
torians of  that  period  as  being  highly 
religious  and  notably  cruel.  Human 
sacrifice  was  a  common  practice  of  their 
priests,  and  flaying  a  prisoner  one  of 
the  tortures  visited  upon  a  captured 
enemy. 

It  is  recounted  by  the  Abbe  Claviger 
in  his  "  History  of  Mexico  "  (published 


4     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

1806),  that  instead  of  killing  they  cut 
off  the  ears  of  their  opponents  in  one 
battle  and  preserved  them  in  baskets  to 
show  their  allies  as  evidence  of  their 
prowess. 

During  the  time  I  was  in  the  State  of 
Tamaulipas,  1914-15,  Constitutionalist 
troopers  caught  a  "  bandit  "  who  had 
given  them  a  hard  chase,  and  to  make 
sure  he  would  not  again  escape,  as  once 
before  he  had,  they  sliced  off  the  soles 
of  his  feet ! 

When  the  Spaniards  came  to  Mexico 
with  their  arts  and  their  agricultural 
skill,  their  industrial  training,  their 
church  and  their  avarice,  they  found  in 
this  hardy  people,  who  had  so  valor- 
ously  defended  their  capital  city  until 
betrayed  and  overwhelmed,  a  means 
ready  at  hand  to  till  the  soil,  and  to 
search  the  mountains  for  that  golden 
storehouse  of  which  they  had  heard  and 
dreamed. 

The  settled  lands  the  Spaniards  dis- 
tributed among  the  Indians  (I  shall 
hereafter  use  this  term  when  referring 
to  the  aborigine  or  his  unmixed  de- 
scendant) under  a  form  of  share-work- 
ing with  an  over-chief;  the  unsettled 
land  and  the  mines  they  took  for  them- 


Who  Are  the  Mexicans?  5 

selves.  Thus  the  vanquished  Indian  be- 
came the  man-of -all-work  in  his  own 
country  for  the  victorious,  domineer- 
ing Spaniard;  the  miner,  the  farm- 
hand, the  unskilled  labourer,  or  the 
peon,  as  we  hear  him  most  often  called 
-  a  master  and,  what  was  practically, 
a  serf  class. 

The  new  Spanish  colony  thrived ;  the 
haciendas  flourished  on  the  plains,  the 
hills  yielded  bountifully  of  a  wondrous 
treasure,  and  Spaniards  that  came  orig- 
inally to  adventure  remained  to  build 
their  homes.  Gradually  through  the 
intermarriage  of  these  Europeans  and 
the  natives  there  grew  up  another  and 
a  third  class,  between  the  peon  workers 
on  the  one  hand  and  the  alien  masters 
on  the  other;  a  class  combining  the 
pride,  the  tyranny,  the  moroseness,  the 
fighting  spirit  of  Spain,  with  the  vision, 
the  improvidence,  the  cruelty,  the  care- 
free hopefulness  of  the  aborigine. 

The  arrogance  of  Castile  with  the 
fanaticism  of  Anahuac.  It  was  a  mix- 
ture which  did  not  suggest  co-opera- 
tive, peaceful,  constructive  partner- 
ship. 

From  this  source  came  the  human 
division  we  see  to-day  in  Mexico.  (1) 


6    What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

An  inert,  illiterate,  tractable  mass  —  a 
political  nonentity;  (2)  a  partially  ed- 
ucated, mixed,  or  middle-class  —  active, 
but  ambitious  beyond  its  efficiency  and 
excessively  vain;  (3)  a  comparatively 
small  upper  or  capital  or  educated 
class,  having  but  slight  regard  for  the 
proletariat,  little  patriotism,  and  less 
civic  courage  —  also  active,  and 
shrewd,  but  in  the  making  of  their  own 
fortunes  rather  than  in  the  general  de- 
velopment and  advancement  of  their 
people. 

Of  such  components  —  unprepared 
by  education  or  training,  unfitted  by 
habit  or  temperament,  distrustful  and 
discordant  —  has  the  occasional  pa- 
triot in  Mexico  sought  to  build  a  Re- 
public. 


MAKING  A  MISFIT  CONSTITUTION 

DISCONTENT  was  sure  to  come 
out  of  this  mixture  of  dissimilar 
bloods  and  unfair  adjustment  of  rela- 
tions; and  a  glance  at  the  revolutions 
which  followed  fast  will  help  immeas- 
urably to  a  comprehension  of  the  situa- 
tion to-day. 

Of  the  names  that  stand  out  in  mem- 
ory and  in  Mexican  history  —  Father 
Miguel  Hidalgo,  1810;  Jose  Morelos, 
1813 ;  Augustin  Iturbide,  1821 ;  Vicente 
Guerrero,  1827;  Juan  Alvarez,  1854; 
Bentio  Juarez,  1857;  Porfirio  Diaz, 
1876;  Francisco  Madero,  1911  — 
every  one  came  to  power  as  the  leader 
of  a  revolt  against  an  existing  govern- 
ment. Hidalgo,  Morelos,  Guerrero, 
Alvarez,  Juarez,  were  men  of  high  char- 
acter and  moved  undoubtedly  by  senti- 
ments of  genuine  patriotism  —  nor  is 
there  any  doubt  of  Madero's  honest 
ideals  and  sincere  purpose  —  and  of 
these  Morelos,  Guerrero,  Juarez  —  a 
pure  Zapotec  —  and  Diaz  —  a  Mixtec 
7 


8     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

half  caste  —  had  foresight  and  mental 
endowment. 

Hidalgo,  a  Spanish  priest  of  Dolores 
in  the  mining  State  of  Guanajuato,  is 
popularly  accredited  with  making  the 
first  stroke  for  freedom,  but  two  years 
before  had  been  an  earlier  attempt 
which  failed  through  the  treachery  of 
one  of  the  conspirators. 

Hidalgo  made  some  progress,  gath- 
ering adherents  by  aid  of  government 
treasure  which  he  had  "  promptly 
seized  "  at  the  outset,  and  fighting  gal- 
lantly against  heavy  odds  and  deter- 
mined opposition.  His  supporters 
proved  recreant  to  their  pledges,  how- 
ever, in  an  important  locality  and  at  a 
critical  moment,  and  finally  the  Father 
was  betrayed  by  one  of  his  own  officers, 
captured,  and  executed. 

Morelos,  who  picked  up  the  mantle 
of  Hidalgo,  maintained  the  struggle 
long  enough  to  proclaim  (in  1813)  the 
Constitution  of  Apatzingam  declaring 
for  rights  of  citizenship,  elections,  free 
ballot,  and  liberty  of  press.  But  de- 
fections from  his  followers,  lack  of 
funds,  and  especially  the  first,  weakened 
his  force  and  he,  too,  was  captured  and 
shot. 


Making  a  Misfit  Constitution        9 

Iturbide,  sometimes  called  the  "  lib- 
erator of  Mexico  "  because  of  his  Plan 
de  Iguala  declaring  for  independence, 
who  raised  himself  to  power  by  a  cuar- 
telazo  through  the  help  of  Santa  Ana 
—  was  ejected  a  year  later  by  the  same 
Santa  Ana  —  who  faced  always  which- 
ever way  best  suited  his  own  advance- 
ment—  and  ordered  executed  by  the 
very  congress  he  had  previously  while 
in  power  ordered  dissolved.  Up  to  this 
period  the  church  had  exercised  a  de- 
ciding and  widely  recognised  influence 
in  the  affairs  of  state,  but  with  the  war 
of  independence  the  army  became  the 
supreme  force  of  the  nation.  And  now 
was  established  the  cuartrfazo,  or  mili- 
tary uprising,  expressive  of  individual 
ambition  and  the  disaffected  elements 
which  have  supplied  Mexico  with  revo- 
lutionists since  1821. 

Guerrero,  second  president  of  the 
Republic,  called  "  the  Great  Commoner 
of  Mexico,"  whom  Iturbide  had  scan- 
dalously used  as  an  unwitting  dupe  dur- 
ing his  administration,  was  overthrown 
by  a  cuartelazo,  abandoned  by  the  en- 
tire army  which  had  but  just  acclaimed 
him,  and  deserted  even  by  his  personal 
following.  He  sought  the  peons  of  the 


10     What's  the  Matter  mtli  Mexico? 

soil  whom  he  had  always  befriended  and 
for  whom  he  had  achieved  freedom  from 
the  advance  wage  debt  system,  but  they, 
too,  turned  from  him  and  joined  the 
rebellion.  Though  literally  a  man  of 
the  people,  and  a  leader  who  had  served 
their  interests  ceaselessly,  they  forsook 
him  in  the  hour  of  his  need  for  another 
with  alluring  promise.  Guerrero's  end 
is  characteristic  and  familiar;  he  was 
betrayed  by  a  trusted  friend,  and  shot 
October,  1831. 

In  the  work  of  a  native  historian  we 
read — "  it  was  charged  against  the  ad- 
ministration of  Guerrero  that  he  en- 
deavoured to  rule  in  a  democratic  spirit 
a  people  ignorant  and  inexperienced 
and  devoid  of  democratic  training  and 
traditions."  And  again  of  the  period 
following,  that  "  the  generals  and  high 
officers  of  the  army  (during  the  presi- 
dency of  Bustamante)  "  under  cover  of 
the  fueros,  supplemented  their  hand- 
some salaries  by  operating  counterfeit 
mints,  gambling  hells,  and  gaudy 
brothels ;  while  the  lesser  officers  con- 
tented themselves  with  mere  blackmail- 
ing and  open  highway  robbery  and  .  .  . 
"  occasionally  the  army  went  into  busi- 
ness for  itself  on  a  large  scale  and  in- 


Making  a  Mis-fit  Constitution      11 

stituted  farcical  revolts  and  uprisings 
for  purposes  of  loot  and  rape,"  until 
finally  Bustamante,  who  had  come  into 
office  through  the  cuartelazo  by  which 
he  deposed  Guerrero,  was  himself  over- 
thrown by  a  cuartelazo  in  1841. 

And  now  for  several  years  with  the 
country  in  anarchy  and  its  resources 
depleted,  cuartelazo  followed  cuartelazo 
until  Herrera,  who  was  raised  to  the 
presidency  in  1845  as  a  relief  from  the 
mercenary  Santa  Ana,  was  himself  put 
out  of  office  within  the  year  by  cuarte- 
lazo. But  the  year  following  a  cuarte- 
lazo put  the  treacherous  Santa  Ana 
back  in  power  again  and  called  upon 
congress  to  frame  a  monarchical  consti- 
tution. 

The  ever  lurking  cuartelazo  having 
ousted  the  then  president  —  Arista  — 
the  first  official  act  of  his  successor, 
Juan  Cevallos,  was  to  abolish  the  con- 
gress 1 

Perhaps  another  quotation  from  the 
native  history  of  this  period  showing  a 
deliberate  plot  to  embroil  Texas,  will 
be  informing  to  those  that  are  ever  so 
insistent  in  their  criticism  of  the  United 
States  Government  for  the  Mexican 
War  of  1847.  The  quotation  serves 


1£    What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

also  as  a  parallel  to  recent  and  famil- 
iar happenings  during  1916. 

"  The  necessity  of  keeping  the  atten- 
tion of  the  people  from  domestic  af- 
fairs compelled  the  clerical  party  once 
more  to  resuscitate  the  idea  of  a  war 
with  the  United  States  for  the  recovery 
of  Texas,  and  catholic  press  and  cheap 
politicians  vied  with  each  other  in  their 
efforts  to  inflame  public  sentiment  in 
favour  of  the  plan.  The  ruse  suc- 
ceeded immediately  in  so  far  as  it  gave 
the  government  sufficient  strength  to 
suppress  the  revolutionary  movement 
for  federalism  in  Tampico  and  Puebla." 

There  is  an  impressively  familiar 
note  in  this  for  those  who  recall  the 
political  weavings  and  manifestos  of 
Huerta  and  Carranza. 

That  stalwart  figure,  Alvarez,  headed 
a  successful  revolution  in  1854  with  his 
Plan  de  Ayutla  "  discharging "  the 
Santa  Ana  pest,  whom  he  also  defeated, 
and  in  the  year  following  representa- 
tives to  congress  were  instructed  to  as- 
semble for  the  purpose  of  framing  an- 
other new  constitution.  The  call  re- 
sulted in  the  historic  meeting  of  which 
Juarez  and  Alvarez  were  the  command- 
ing figures,  and  in  the  drafting  and  fi-> 


Making  a  Misfit  Constitution      13 

nally  in  the  promulgation  (1857)  of 
Mexico's  present  constitution.  Alvarez 
became  the  natural  choice  for  president 
during  this  formative  period,  but  estab- 
lished the  altogether  quite  unusual 
precedent  of  resigning  office  shortly 
after  without  request  or  pressure  and 
was  succeeded  by  Ignacio  Comonfort. 

Within  fifteen  days  after  the  adop- 
tion of  the  new  constitution,  Comon- 
fort was  defeated  and  driven  into  exile 
by  a  cuartelazo  headed  by  Felix  Zu- 
loaga,  who  was  forthwith  made  provi- 
sional president.  His  first  act  as  presi- 
dent was  to  abolish  this  new  constitu- 
tion which  expressed  "  the  aspirations 
of  the  Mexican  people  "  and  had  been 
forty-seven  years  in  making. 

The  native  historian  in  commenting 
on  this  phase  of  his  country's  revolu- 
tionary agony  tells  us  that  Comonfort, 
who  on  taking  the  presidential  office, 
had  shown  a  more  lenient  attitude 
towards  his  erstwhile  opponents  —  as 
for  example  imprisoning  instead  of 
shooting,  as  had  been  the  custom,  po- 
litical offenders,  deserting  soldiers,  and 
the  like  —  was  inspired  by  the  hope 
"  that  a  policy  of  liberality  and  mercy 
would  appeal  to  the  better  nature  of  his 


14<     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

opponents  and  bring  to  weary,  blood- 
stained Mexico  a  period  of  peace  and 
good  will."  'Twas  a  hope  not  real- 
ised. 

After  three  bloody  years  of  fighting, 
Juarez  entered  Mexico  City  and  opened 
congress  with  a  spirited  and  patriotic 
speech  in  which  he  declared  "  the  fed- 
eration is  now  compact  and  united  by 
constitutional  ties,  and  ready  to  sus- 
tain our  national  institution  and  to  en- 
force and  obey  the  laws  enacted  by  this 
sovereign  assembly."  And  on  his  re- 
election after  the  French  intervention 
period,  Porfirio  Diaz  issued  his  Plan 
de  la  Noria  and  set  out  to  depose  him 
with  a  revolution,  which,  however,  be- 
cause' Juarez  was  both  ready  and 
strong,  failed  almost  at  its  inception. 

Juarez  died  in  1872,  leaving  one  of 
the  greatest  names  in  Mexico's  history 
and  his  country  in  comparative  peace 
on  the  threshold  of  awakening  to  indus- 
trial development. 

Lerdo  de  Tejada,  who  succeeded  him, 
followed  in  his  wise  footsteps  of  keeping 
the  military  out  of  civil  administration 
to  a  very  large  extent,  yet  an  element 
of  disquiet  soon  again  raised  its  dis- 
torted head,  and  in  1876  Porfirio  Diaz 


Making  a  Misfit  Constitution     15 

issued  his  Tuxtepec  plan  which  "  dis- 
charged "  Tejada  and  all  opposing  gov- 
ernors, declared  against  re-election  of 
either  president  or  governors,  and  ap- 
pointed himself  "  interim  president 
pending  a  presidential  election." 

Tejada  lacked  the  iron  hand  and  will 
of  his  great  predecessor  Juarez';  his 
ways  had  been  more  the  ways  of  peace, 
so  that  he  was  unequal  to  resisting  this 
new  revolutionist,  who,  marching  into 
Mexico  City,  was  accepted  at  once  as 
president. 

Juarez  was  the  best  of  Mexico's  rulers 
to  that  time,  and  Tejada  an  excellent 
one;  their  regimes,  1867-75,  called  the 
"  Restoration  Period,"  brought  the 
first  peace  the  country  had  experienced 
and  gave  the  people  enjoyment  of  the 
full  democracy  granted  under  the  con- 
stitution of  1857  for  which  they  had  as- 
pired and  fought.  The  country  was 
just  beginning  to  settle  to  habits  of 
peace  and  the  beginning  of  prosperity. 
Yet  in  the  face  of  this,  when  General 
Hernandez  in  Oaxaca  launched  his 
cuartelazo  for  Diaz,  it  was  at  once  fol- 
lowed by  cuartelazos  with  the  same  ob- 
ject all  over  the  country  even  from 
Lower  California  to  Vera  Cruz ! 


16     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

The  impulse  of  revolutionists  previ- 
ous to  Alvarez  had  been,  according  to 
native  history,  "  to  overthrow  the  power 
that  denied  them  high  official  position," 
but  Francisco  Madero,  in  his  1910  Plan 
of  San  Luis  Potosi  calling  for  free 
ballot  and  non-re-election,  introduced 
"  free  land  "  and  made  it  the  slogan  of 
his  revolt  against  Diaz. 

When  in  October,  1911,  Madero  was 
elected  president  he,  like  Guerrero  and 
Comonfort  before  him,  sought  to  admin- 
ister his  office  in  a  democratic  spirit, 
instituting  a  "  generous  and  merciful 
attitude  "  towards  his  erstwhile  politi- 
cal opponents  —  and  again  like  Guer- 
rero and  Comonfort,  he,  too,  found  a 
people  "  ignorant "  and  "  devoid  of 
democratic  training." 

From  1810  when  Father  Hidalgo 
made  the  first  bid  for  independence,  to 
1913  when  Madero  was  murdered,  the 
duration  in  office  of  Mexico's  many  rul- 
ers had  averaged,  apart  from  the 
Juarez  and  Diaz  regimes,  scarcely  one 
year  each.  Contention  for  leadership 
has  kept  the  country  in  desperate  and 
well-nigh  unending  strife,  until  1857,  to 
secure  a  constitution,  and  since  then, 
ostensibly,  to  put  that  constitution 


Making  a  Misfit  Constitution      17 

into  operation.  In  one  hundred  and 
six  years  there  have  been  forty-one 
years  of  peace  (of  comparative  peace 
many  of  them)  —  seven  under  Juarez- 
Tejada,  and  thirty-four  under  Diaz- 
Gonzales. 

Bearing  upon  our  study  of  condi- 
tions in  present  day  Mexico,  the  im- 
partial history  of  this  period  reveals 
three  prominent  facts,  viz: 

(1)  That  the  revolts  have  sprung 
from  individual  and  not  from  popular 
impulse ; 

(£)  That  the  people  were  irresolute 
in  principle ; 

(3)  That  the  people  were  fickle  in 
conduct. 


THE  REVOLUTIONARY  HABIT 

SO  we  come  to  the  question  of  why 
these  revolutions  continue  now 
that  Mexico  has  a  liberal  and  free  spir- 
ited constitution,  how  they  start,  how 
maintained,  their  effect  upon  the  peoT 
pie,  and  why  results  appear  never  to  be 
conclusive. 

We  must  keep  in  mind  that  original 
blood  mixture,  the  three  hundred  years 
of  Spanish  greed  and  domination  before 
freedom  came,  and  the  division  of  the 
population  as  it  stands  to-day.  In 
round  numbers  there  are,  or  rather 
were  in  1910,  about  fifteen  millions  of 
all  classes.  Of  these  it  is  estimated  that 
sixty  per  cent.,  or  about  nine  millions, 
are  pure,  direct  descendants  of  their 
aboriginal  forebears;  thirty  per  cent. 
or  about  four  and  a  half  million  repre- 
sent the  mixed  class  of  Indian  and 
Spanish  —  the  Mexican  so-called ;  and 
ten  per  cent,  or  approximately  one 
million  and  a  half  answer  for  the  Span- 
18 


The  Revolutionary  Habit        19 

iards  of  the  pure  blood  and  the  foreign- 
ers, of  whom  Americans  comprised  the 
largest  number,  reckoned  to  be  at  that 
time  fully  fifty  thousand  or  more. 

In  every  revolution,  as  in  this  one 
also,  there  were  men  inspired  by  sin- 
cere and  patriotic  motives,  but  as  a  rule 
their  origin  has  been  in  motives  less 
honourable. 

Most  revolutions  start  by  spme  dis- 
affected local  leader  with  political  am- 
bitions and  a  grievance,  gathering  his 
friends  and  employes  under  a  plan 
promising  solution  of  all  national  ills, 
and  the  unhampered  pursuit  of  happi- 
ness for  his  supporters.  Following  the 
tradition  established  by  Hidalgo  he 
opens  the  jail  and  then  sallies  forth, 
confiscating  whatever  he  is  strong 
enough  to  take  and  destroying  what- 
ever property  of  the  "  enemy  "  he  can- 
not use.  If  there  is  public  treasure,  he 
takes  it,  and  if  there  are  foreign  com- 
panies in  the  neighbourhood,  they  as 
well  as  the  merchants  and  the  bankers 
yield  a  "  loan  "  for  as  much  as  happens 
to  be  in  sight.  From  the  church  money 
is  extorted  by  imprisonment,  or  tor- 
ture, or  threat  of  death.  Such  are  the 
sources  of  support  of  all  revolutionists 


20    What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

before  they  get  hold   of  the  Govern- 
ment. 

The  free  and  not  too  dangerous  or 
onerous  life  of  the  army,  the  lax  disci- 
pline, the  license  to  appropriate  what- 
ever property  may  be  found  along  the 
march,  the  freedom  from  confining 
steady  labour,  constitute  a  strong  ap- 
peal to  the  Indian  half  of  that  mixed 
blood,  and  make  of  recruiting  the  sim- 
ple proposition  of  some  ready  money 
and  a  plenty  of  promise.  So  every 
man  with  nothing  to  lose  but  his  life, 
turns  revolutionist.  It  becomes  the 
best  business  in  sight  for  the  peon, 
sometimes  the  only  business.  He  has 
no  clear  knowledge  of  the  quarrel  be- 
yond what  his  immediate  jefe  (chief) 
tells  him,  not  even  for  what  or  for 
whom  he  fights.  He  has  done  what  his 
jefe  has  told  him  to  do  time  out  of 
mind,  and  he  fights  because  the  jefe 
tells  him  to  fight  and  promises  him  a 
share  of  the  booty.  It  is  the  personal- 
ism  of  politics  in  Mexico.  Thus  the 
peons  form  the  rank  and  file  of  the 
army,  while  from  the  ranchero,  the  ha- 
ccndado,  the  gang  boss  of  the  city,  the 
bandit  of  the  country,  come  the  offi- 
cers. The  political*  lawyers,  the  dis- 


The  Revolutionary  Habit 


appointed  office  seekers,  the  dream- 
ers, and  the  fanatics  furnish  the  agi- 
tators, the  orators,  the  press 
a^nts. 

rThe  very  easiest  thing  to  start  in 
Mexico  is  a  revolution ;  first,  because 
their  constitution  does  not  agree  with 
the  nature  and  the  character  of  the  peo- 
ple ;  second,  because  it  is  personalism 
in  Mexican  politics  and  not  the  law  or 
even  thought  of  country  that  rules  and 
influences  action;  and  third,  because 
the  bullet  and  not  the  vote  is  the  rec- 
ognised medium  f or  jsettling  differences 
in  political  opinion.!  It  is  the  code  of 
the  country  that  a  man  who  fails  at  the 
polls  must  fight;  otherwise  he  is  po- 
litically dead.  That  is  why  foreigners 
living  in  Mexico  dread  an  election  — 
even  of  the  "  arranged  "  variety  which 
has  obtained  —  quite  as  much  as  a 
revolution,  for  the  first  has  been  the 
usual  forerunner  of  the  second, 
dero  was  put  in  office 
em oticmaT  wave  towards  an 
able  idea' 
the 


GOTH 
Made 


22     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

governors  was  followed  by  as  many  se- 
rious State  revolts. 

In  Guanajuato,  the  governor,  Vil- 
lasenor,  congratulated  his  successful 
opponent  —  and  forthwith  killed  him- 
self politically  for  his  very  unusual  and 
un-Mexican  act.  The  people  looked 
upon  him  as  a  poor  thing  lacking  spirit 
and  not  entitled  to  further  support. 

Before  the  interview  Porfirio  Diaz 
gave  James  Creelman  in  1908,  there 
had  been  during  the  Dictator's  reign, 
no  other  party.  It  was  all  Diaz.  A 
man  was  a  Porfirista  or  he  kept  his 
opinions  to  himself.  But  in  this  pub- 
lished interview  which  Diaz  did  not 
deny,  the  General  said  he  was  going  to 
make  the  next  election  —  1910  —  a 
real  election ;  that  he  was  determined 
to  retire ;  that  he  hoped  for  an  election 
which  would  express  the  choice  of  the 
Mexican  people,  and  desired  parties 
to  form  and  offer  candidates.  This 
statement  caused  Mexico  to  gasp  in  un- 
disguised surprise,  but  as  there  came 
no  word  to  the  contrary  from  the  Cas- 
tle, a  movement  started  to  organise  for 
and  discuss  possible  candidates.  The 
Partido  Democratico,  a  party  having 
for  its  slogan  "no  personalities;  prin- 


The  Revolutionary  Habit       23 

ciples  only,"  was  formed.  It  was  a 
strange  happening  and  aroused  much 
interest  throughout  the  country.  At 
the  first  meeting,  the  attempt  to  elect 
a  chairman  developed  such  commotion 
through  the  heated  advocacy  of  rival 
candidates  that  the  meeting  finally 
broke  up  in  disorder.  And  that  was 
the  end  of  the  Partido  Democratico. 
It  never  revived. 

When  Eulalio  Gutierrez  was  elected 
"  Convention "  President  at  Aguas 
Calientes  October,  1914,  after  Villa 
had  come  down  from  the  north  and 
Carranza  had  refused  to  come  up  from 
the  south,  General  Antonio  Villareal, 
who  had  brazenly  courted  the  honour, 
disputed  the  Chairman,  split  the  party 
and  left  town  in  a  fury.  Later  when 
Gutierrez  fled  before  Villa  from  Mex- 
ico City  to  set  himself  up  as  president 
independent  of  this  Convention  or  of 
Villa  or  Carranza,  taking  Lucio  Blanco 
and  other  disaffected  members  of  the 
party  with  him,  he  carried  off  ten  mil- 
lion pesos  of  the  national  treasury. 
And  all  factions  represented  at  the 
Aguas  Calientes  Convention,  which  sub- 
sequently waged  war  on  one  another 
—  Obrcgon,  Villareal,  Gonzales,  Agui- 


24     What" s  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

lar,  Gutierrez,  Villa,  and  Zapata  — 
present  or  represented,  wrote  their 
names  in  token  of  their  complete  ac- 
cord upon  the  flag  of  Mexico  amid 
cheers  and  tears  and  a  vast  oratorical 
outpouring  to  attest  their  patriotism 
and  their  loyalty  to  the  Convention. 

One  of  the  generals  to  put  his  name 
on  the  silk  flag  at  Aguas  as  a  repre- 
sentative of  Venustiano  Carranza  was 
Alfonso  Santibanez.  He  had  been  a 
local  jefe  on  Tehuantepec  under  Ma- 
dcro  and  when  the  latter  in  the  course 
of  his  appointments  sent  a  successor, 
Santibanez  killed  him  and  took  to  the 
hills  where  as  an  active  bandit  he  ac- 
quired further  importance  and  quite  a 
following.  When  General  Jesus  Car- 
ranza was  sent  to  the  Isthmus  by  his 
brother  the  First  Chief,  to  secure  its 
fealty,  he  sought  out  and  "  recog- 
nised "  and  attached  to  his  army  this 
Santibanez. 

A  month  or  so  later  Santibanez 
changed  his  faith,  captured  General 
Jesus  Carranza,  and  killed  him. 

Thus  the  officers'  viewpoint;  the  sol- 
diers can  hardly  be  expected  to  have 
one  more  elevated. 

While  in  Monterrey  a  friend  told  me 


The  Revolutionary  Habit        25 

the  story  of  his  house  servant  who  had 
joined  the  Constitutionalist  army. 
The  muchacho  one  day  announced  his 
intention  of  going  to  the  front;  the 
master  said  he  was  sorry  to  lose  a  good 
servant  but  pleased  to  see  support  for 
the  constitutionalist  cause  coining  vol- 
untarily from  men  of  his  class  who 
should  naturally  be  the  ones  most  bene- 
fited by  its  success,  and  therefore 
among  the  first  to  enlist.  "But,"  re- 
plied the  servant,  "  I  am  not  sure  I  shall 
join  the  constitutionalists."  "  Not  the 
constitutionalists,"  exclaimed  my  friend 
in  astonishment,  "  what  army  is  there 
then  that  you  would  join?"  "Well," 
answered  the  patriot,  "  the  constitu- 
tionalists here  are  offering  one  peso 
fifty,  but  I  hear  that  Huerta  is  offering 
one  seventy-five  to  recruits,  and  before 
I  join  I  am  going  to  learn  who  pays  the 
most."  And  neither  this  man  nor  any 
of  many  similar  cases  encountered  in 
my  travels  among  the  Villistas,  the  Car- 
ranzistas,  or  other  istas,  saw  anything 
in  such  an  attitude  not  entirely  becom- 
ing a  loyal  member  in  good  standing  of 
a  "  delicate,  sensitive  race." 

At   a  mine  near  San  Luis  I  met  a 
man   who   had   deserted   from   General 


26     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

Angeles  because  the  officers  had  "  de- 
ceived "  him.  When  he  was  lured  from 
a  good  place  with  one  of  the  American 
mining  companies,  and  recruited,  he  had 
been  promised  a  chance  at  looting  in 
the  captured  towns;  but  no  towns  had 
been  captured  —  so  he  had  run  away. 

At  Jalapa  I  talked  with  another  who 
had  deserted  the  Blanco  brigade  be- 
cause, as  he  said,  the  officers  took  all 
the  best  horses  and  loot  for  themselves ; 
he  was  planning  at  that  time  to  join 
the  Jesus  Carranza  command  where  he 
heard  the  men  were  given  a  "  fairer  " 
share. 

During  the  uncertain  time  at  Tam- 
pico  between  the  going  of  the  Federals 
and  the  coming  of  the  Pablo  Gonzales 
troops,  there  was  a  lot  of  free-for-all 
looting,  or,  shall  I  say,  the  taking  of 
anything  which  for  the  moment  ap- 
peared unemployed;  in  a  word,  any- 
thing not  nailed  down.  So  the  horse 
belonging  to  a  foreign  resident  disap- 
peared. One  day  after  the  Constitu- 
tionalists had  settled  into  undisputed 
possession  of  the  town,  tfte  owner  of  the 
lost  animal  discovered  it  hitched  as  one 
of  a  public  coach  pair.  He  claimed 
and  finally,  after  much  difficulty  and 


The  Revolutionary  Habit        27 

with  the  good  offices '  of  his  Consul, 
came  again  into  possession  of  it.  But 
the  hackman  could  not  at  all  under- 
stand why  he  should  be  deprived  of  a 
horse  he  had  "  found "  in  the  fields 
while  he  was  serving  his  jefe,  and  swore 
vengeance  on  those  who  were  instru- 
mental in  taking  from  him  property  he 
had  acquired,  legitimately,  so  far  as  he 
could  see.  The  man  was  entirely  sin- 
cere. 

In  Mexico  City  I  was  presented  to  a 
colonel  of  the  Carranza  army,  who 
three  years  before  had  been  a  motor- 
man  on  the  city  trolley  line.  At  the 
time  I  talked  with  him,  at  the  house  of 
a  native  with  whom  I  was  studying 
Spanish,  he  had  amassed  a  house  in  the 
city,  two  pianos  —  of  which  he  spoke 
with  especial  pride  —  good  clothes,  and 
an  automobile.  He  had  been  a  pelado ; 
now  he  was  a  senor  with  a  capital  S. 
One  ranch  peon  who  joined  the  army 
and  was  in  the  fighting  and  looting  at 
Durango,  shortly  thereafter  bought  a 
ranch  in  his  own  State,  Chihuahua,  for 
twenty  thousand  pesos.  Is  it  to  won- 
der that  the  army  is  popular  with  cer- 
tain types  of  Mexicans?  The  wonder 
is  whether  these  men  are  going  to  re- 


28      What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

turn  to  the  trolley,  and  the  ranch,  and 
the  mine  when  present  opportunity 
ends. 

When  Obregon  and  Blanco  made 
their  get-away  from  Mexico  City  in 
November,  1914,  leaving  the  city  as 
they  thought  to  the  expected  looting  of 
Zapata,  the  troop  trains  stood  amidst 
literal  lanes  of  household  goods  taken 
by  the  departing  patriots  from  the  con- 
fiscated houses  of  their  fellow  country- 
men ;  and  all  the  Mexicans'  luxuries 
from  typewriters  to  phonographs  and 
pianos  and  sewing  machines  could  be 
picked  up  at  bargains  when  it  became 
known  that  there  were  not  enough  cars 
to  carry  away  all  the  loot  which  had 
been  taken  in  the  name  of  "  uplift." 
Two  days  after  Blanco  had  skulked  out 
of  the  city,  I  counted  sixteen  automo- 
biles destroyed  or  mutilated  beyond  re- 
pair in  a  field  seven  miles  from  town 
where  they  had  been  abandoned  by  him 
and  Obregon. 

These  soldiers  of  the  army  are  not 
concerned  with  the  principles  of  de- 
mocracy; they  have  neither  interest  in 
nor  knowledge  of  the  problems  of  a  re- 
public;  it  matters  not  who  happens  to 
be  first  chief;  their  interest  is  in  having 


The  Revolutionary  Habit        29 

a  chance  at  getting  something  for  noth- 
ing. It  is  not  that  they  are  so  vicious 
as  that  they  are  so  ignorant,  and  the 
blood  they  have  inherited  makes  for 
lustful  adventuring.  They  are  having 
such  a  fling  at  "  liberty  "  as  they  have 
never  known  in  their  impoverished  and 
more  or  less  oppressed  lives. 

The  Huerta  soldiers  that  defended 
Chihuahua  under  General  Mercado 
against  Villa's  assaults,  joined  Villa  in 
considerable  numbers  when  he  came  into 
the  city  triumphant.  The  men  on  the 
border  constantly  shifted  from  Car- 
ranza  to  Villa  or  back  again  according 
to  varying  fortunes  and  local  condi- 
tions. The  men  of  Gonzales  deserted 
him  by  the  score  when  he  was  driven 
out,  and  entered  the  Villa  ranks.  Villa 
lost  officers  and  men  right  along  at  such 
points  as  he  was  compelled  to  evacuate, 
and  after  his  heavy  defeat,  in  a  trap 
by  Obregon  at  Celaya  owing  to  his  im- 
petuous and  overconfident  advance,  the 
desertions  from  his  ranks  were  large 
enough  to  weaken  him  seriously.  Both> 
Blanco  and  Obregon  lost  heavily  in  de- 
sertions to  General  Angeles  when  they 
retreated  before  his  advance.  Miners 
throughout  Chihuahua  who  were  thrown 


30     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

out  of  work  by  the  shutting  down  of 
the  foreign  properties,  joined  the 
forces  of  Madcro,  then  those  of  Or- 
ozco  when  he  fought  Madero,  then 
Huerta,  who  fought  both  Madero  and 
Orozco,  and  finally  were  to  be  found 
under  the  banners  of  Villa  and  Car- 
ranza. 

Then  there  is  the  well  established 
story  of  Veracruz,  where  the  Federal 
gunboat  officer  who  switched  fealty 
from  Madero  to  Felix  Diaz  and  back 
again  to  Madero,  explained  his  most 
recent' change  to  some  very  good  Amer- 
ican friends  at  a  dinner  on  the  ground 
of  being  a  patriot  in  doubt  as  to  which 
side  was  going  to  win  and,  said  he, 
"  how  can  one  be  a  patriot  if  he  is  on 
the  losing  side?  " 

Of  all  the  Government  military  offi- 
cers at  the  National  Palace  on  that 
morning  of  February  8,  1913,  which 
ushered  in  the  fateful  conspiracy 
against  Madero,  only  General  Lauro 
Villar  and  his  valiant  little  group  re- 
mained actively  loyal.  They  managed 
to  hold  the  Palace  but  the  troops  which 
had  promised  to  keep  faith,  went  over 
to  Mondragon  after  being  harangued 
by  his  officer,  Colonel  Aguillon. 


The  Revolutionary  Habit        31 

Although  Madero's  Plan  particu- 
larly urged  that  soldiers  must  not 
"  sack  any  town  or  kill  defenceless  pris- 
oners," the  dreadful  slaughter  of  three 
hundred  Chinamen  at  Torreon,  1911, 
by  the  troops  under  his  brother  Emilio, 
and  the  looting  and  barbarous  conduct 
at  Durango,  Zacatecas,  and  elsewhere, 
showed  the  little  influence  of  his  appeal 
either  while  he  lived  or  with  the  gen- 
erals who  espoused  his  cause  after  he 
had  been  murdered.  When  carrying 
out  his  idea  of  democracy  Madero  dis- 
banded twenty  thousand  of  his  army 
after  taking  the  presidential  chair, 
most  of  whom  had  fought  for  the 
opportunity  to  loot,  they  at  once 
flocked  to  the  standards  of  his  oppo- 
nents. 

When  Felix  Diaz  was  captured  by 
General  Valdez  on  his  stupid  and  un- 
successful attempt  at  Vera  Cruz  to 
start  a  cuartelazo  against  Madero,  his 
soldiers  promptly  shouted  for  his  cap- 
tor and  returned  allegiance  to  the  Gov- 
ernment which  a  few  moments  before 
they  had  been  ready  to  fight. 

General  Reyes,  who  had  been  a  sup- 
porter of  General  Porfirio  Diaz  with 
sword  in  hand  ready  to  quell  Madero, 


32      What's  the  Matter  mill  Mexico? 

became  subsequently  a  follower  of  Ma- 
dero  and  then  headed  a  revolt  to  un- 
seat him. 

Francisco  Vasquez  Gomez  was  Ma- 
dero's  chief  of  the  Washington  junta 
—  his  board  bill  paid  by  the  Madero 
family;  and  after  Madero  was  elected 
lie  joined  a  revolt  against  him. 

Orozco,  the  red  handed,  who  had 
fought  for  Madero,  started  a  revolu- 
tion in  favour  of  himself  after  Made- 
ro's  election,  because  Madero,  after 
giving  him  one  hundred  thousand  re- 
fused to  give  him  another  one  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  pesos  he  demanded 
as  his  share  for  patriotically  helping  to 
"  free  "  Mexico. 

Huerta,  when  found  to  be  short  over 
one  million  pesos  of  the  money  Madero 
had  sent  him  for  his  campaign  against 
Orozco,  was  raised  to  a  major  general- 
ship. 

Such  are  the  workings  of  the  Mex- 
ican mind  and  habit ;  such  the  rule  of 
revolution  as  we  have  more  often  seen 
it.  Constitutional  government  as  the 
excuse  for  leaders  to  exercise  the  pro- 
fession of  politics  —  politics,  the  open 
sesame  to  the  grab  bag.  Apart  from 
the  few  high  minded,  loyal  Mexicans, 


The  Revolutionary  Habit        33 

for  whom  jail  has  been  the  usual  re- 
ward of  constancy,  patriotism  has 
served  as  a  mere  phrase  and  a  cloak  to 
hide  the  opportunist. 

The  Juarez  breed  of  patriot  has  just 
about  run  out.  Not  a  single  Mexican 
civilian  among  all  he  had  befriended 
went  to  the  support  of  Porfirio  Diaz 
after  his  thirty-six  years  of  reign ;  not 
that  they  were  righteous,  but  they  were 
Mexicans.  When  Madero  in  the  bit- 
terness of  his  awakening  to  the  changed 
sentiment  around  him,  called  upon  the 
law  and  abiding  citizens  for  help,  only 
one  man  responded  —  an  American  of 
Irish  extraction,  Braniff  by  name.  And 
when  Carranza  came  to  Mexico  City  in 
August,  1914,  Carranza,  the  "  aveng- 
er "of  Madero,  he  turned  the  American 
mother  of  Braniff  out  of  her  house  and 
handed  it  over  to  his  General  Obregon 
for  headquarters. 

The  jefe  of  one  little  town  during 
the  Madero-Orozco  revolution,  raided 
another  small  town  —  Aldaman  — 
driving  off  the  defenders  and  then  ap- 
propriating everything  that  could  be 
carried  away  from  the  shops  and  the 
houses  of  the  people  whose  misfortune 
it  was  that  two  rival  bands  had  hap- 


34     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

pened  to  use  their  little  settlement  for 
a  battleground. 

An  Englishman  who  had  a  ranch 
nearby  and  chanced  to  be  in  the  town, 
asked  the  looting  jefe  what  it  was  all 
about,  why  he  fought  and  robbed  these 
people  who  had  taken  no  part  in  the 
battle  or  the  controversy  and  done  him 
no  harm.  "A  just  cause,"  replied  the 
jefe.  "  Yes,  I  know,"  persisted  the 
Englishman,  "but  what  is  it  about? 
!You  destroy  and  carry  off  the  crops 
of  your  fellow  countrjrmen,  you  loot 
their  stores,  you  misuse  their  wives  and 
daughters,  what's  the  reason,  why  do 
you  do  this?"  "  A  just  cause,  and 
that's  all  I'll  say,  a  just  cause,"  replied 
the  jefe;  and  that  was  all  the  English- 
man could  get  out  of  him.  And  it  is 
about  all  I  was  ever  able  to  get  out  of 
any  Mexican  high  or  low  who  indorsed 
the  riot  of  anarchy. 

A  riot  of  anarchy,  a  riot  unre- 
strained and  atrocious  in  deed  —  fit- 
tingly describes  the  activities  of  the 
revolutionists  of  this  last  "  passion  for 
peace "  explosion,  whether  under  Ma- 
dero,  Huerta,  Villa,  or  Carranza. 
Zapata,  despite  his  reputation  —  out- 
side of  Mexico  —  to  the  contrary,  has 


The  Revolutionary  Habit        35 

the  cleanest  record.  Mexico  City  had 
been  awaiting  his  heralded  approach  in 
the  autumn  of  1914  with  fear  and 
trembling;  the  bars  for  the  shop  doors 
and  windows  had  been  reinforced  in  the 
hope  of  at  least  delaying  the  antici- 
pated looting  of  these  "  wild  bandits." 
And  when  Zapata  and  his  simple,  bare- 
footed Indians  finally  did  come  to  the 
City,  they  gave  the  residents  the  first 
unmolested  period  it  had  enjoyed  up  to 
that  time,  and  the  only  fair  treatment 
since  Madero  was  killed.  The  Zapatis- 
tas confiscated  no  property,  and  pro- 
ceeded to  restore  to  its  owners  as  far 
as  they  were  able,  that  which  had  been 
stolen  by  the  Carranzistas.  The  City 
breathed  at  will  and  relaxed  in  smiles. 
Those  who  had  successfully  concealed 
their  automobiles  from  Obregon  and 
Blanco,  rode  through  the  streets 
bravely  and  happily.  But  the  act  of 
the  Zapatistas  which  literally  took 
breath  away  was  their  return  of  a  fifty 
thousand  peso  loan  which  they  had 
made  on  arrival  and  pending  the  levy- 
ing of  one  extra  month's  tax  to  meet 
the  feeding  of  the  soldiers.  It  was 
something  unheard  of  in  the  history  of 
revolution  past  or  present. 


56      What'*  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

The  usual  procedure  of  a  revolution- 
ist party  upon  successfully  carrying  a 
town,  is  to  first  search  out  the  women; 
second,  to  loot ;  third,  to  destroy.  Such 
is  the  fight  for  "  constitutional "  gov- 
ernment !  Destruction  and  brutality 
visited  upon  their  own  harmless  people ; 
and  some  of  their  exploits  have  been 
fiendish  even  in  this  day  when  "  flaming 
fire  "  and  gas  and  burning  tar  are  the 
usual  weapons  of  attack. 

Of  the  atrocities  committed  in  North- 
western Mexico  alone,  I  have  eleven 
sheets  of  legal  cap  fully  covered  with 
brief  statements  —  the  longest  being 
five  lines  —  of  murders,  kidnapping, 
seizure  of  property,  robbery,  and  ruth- 
less destruction  of  livestock ! 

When^  retreating  from  San  Luis  Po- 
tosi  the  Huerta  federals  shot  from  the 
car  windows  at  whatever  and  whom- 
ever they  saw,  though  luckily  their 
marksmanship  was  poor.  All  along  the 
line  cattle  were  killed  in  this  manner. 
On  one  occasion  a  vaquero  made  an  in- 
viting target  and  the  train  was  actually 
stopped  while  a  number  of  the  soldiers 
tried  to  hit  him  before  he  rode  out  of 
range. 

It  was  the  constitutional  victors  over 


The  Revolutionary  Habit        37 

this  lot  of  Federals  who  on  passing  an 
oil  pumping  station  impressed  two  of 
the  workmen  into  guiding  a  group  of 
soldiers  to  a  certain  point  of  their  road. 
When  they  had  reached  their  destina- 
tion they  hung  the  two  guides,  whose 
graves  I  passed  on  my  way  through 
this  section. 

One  of  the  earliest  successes  of  the 
Constitutionalists  was  at  Durango  un- 
der the  leadership  of  a  brute  called  Ur- 
bina,  where  the  soldiers  were  given 
twenty-four  hours'  license  to  do  as  they 
pleased !  The  story  of  the  looting  and 
the  raping  of  that  poor  town  will  al- 
ways remain  a  disgrace  to  the  consti- 
.tutionalist  general  staff  and  soldiery. 
They  pillaged  the  bank,  they  robbed 
the  stores,  they  chased  every  comely 
face  that  dared  venture  onto  the 
streets,  and  they  stabled  their  horses 
in  the  parlours  of  the  private  houses. 

After  passing  through  miles  and 
miles  of  torn-up  roadbed  and  twisted 
rails,  demolished  stations,  and  burned 
freight  cars,  I  entered  Zacatecas  over 
the  sunken  road  where  Villa  had 
trapped  the  retreating  Federals  and 
made  the  greatest  killing  of  the  war 
with  his  machine  guns  placed  on  the  op- 


38      What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

posite  and  commanding  hillside.  The 
town  cowered.  The  priests  had  been 
stripped  of  whatever  was  to  be  found 
in  their  churches,  and  imprisoned; 
some  of  the  shops  had  been  looted ;  the 
officers  were  taking  toll  of  such  women 
as  could  not  escape;  and  the  Supreme 
Court  was  being  used  as  a  stable  for 
the  horses  of  the  officers.  Zacatecas 
has  good  reason  to  remember  its  occu- 
pation by  General  Natera  of  the  Army 
of  the  North.  Money  was  raised  by 
the  imprisoned  priests  and  some  of 
them  released  with  the  advice  to  get 
out  of  the  country  —  others  are  yet  to 
be  heard  from.  But  the  girls  had  no 
respite ;  many  of  them  were  caught  and 
violated;  none  of  them  above  the  peon 
women  who  kept  their  little  street 
stands  of  fruits  and  beans  and  corn, 
dared  show  her  face  at  a  window  or 
venture  out.  The  shops  were  closed 
and  barred ;  the  people  were  existing  on 
tunas  —  prickly  pear  of  the  cactus  — 
the  town  appeared  as  if  in  the  grip  of 
a  pestilence  which  had  laid  low  half  the 
population  and  hushed  the  remainder. 

In  the  ancient  little  town  of  Guada- 
lupe  lived  a  charitable  old  priest  who 
at  the  time  of  the  fighting  that  swirled 


The  Revolutionary  Habit        39 

around  that  section  of  the  State  con- 
verted the  low,  single  story  parish 
school  building  into  a  hospital.  Here 
he  had  cared  for  such  wounded  as  he 
could  hear  of  or  as  dragged  themselves 
to  the  doors  of  the  settlement.  One 
day  a  considerable  party  of  passing 
Constitutionalists  discovered  the  priest 
at  his  merciful  task.  Opening  wide  the 
door  of  the  improvised  hospital,  as 
many  as  could  do  so  rode  into  the  house 
and  over  the  wounded  lying  on  the  floor. 
Those  who  escaped  trampling  were  in 
part  taken  out  and  shot. 

Early  in  the  campaign  against 
Huerta  a  favourite  plan  of  destruction 
with  the  constitutionalists  took  the 
form  of  djHnamiting  and  it  was  through 
his  diabolical  success  in  this  killing 
business  that  Gutierrez  came  first  prom- 
inently before  the  revolutionary  world. 
Previously  he  had  been  a  roustabout 
at  an  American  mining  plant,  but  now 
he  became  a  Carranza  general,  and  later 
he  was  elected  president  by  the  Conven- 
tion at  Agua  Calientes.  One  of  the 
most  fruitful  of  these  dynamite  at- 
tacks was  upon  an  ordinary  Saltillo- 
San  Luis  Potosi  passenger  train  in 
which,  besides  some  Huerta  soldiers, 


40     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

many  second  class  passengers  were 
killed  and  all  the  living  first  class 
robbed  by  Carranza  soldiers  lying  in 
waiting.  But  an  equally  choice  exhi- 
bition of  revolutionist  wreckage  and 
fiendish  spirit  was  that  at  Cumbre 
where  an  officer  named  Castillo  wrecked 
the  regular  passenger  train  in  the  tun- 
nel and  then  fired  it,  among  the  passen- 
gers killed  being  fifteen  Americans. 
Some  .time  later  this  same  Castillo  was 
arrested  on  American  soil  by  the  bor- 
der authorities,  and  under  instructions 
from  Washington  sent  "  for  safety  "  to 
Cuba.  Not  long  after  he  returned  to 
Mexico  and  joined  the  constitutional- 
ists! 

From  Chihuahua  south  all  the  way 
through  the  country  east  and  west 
down  to  the  Tehuantepec  country,  the 
story  was  the  same  or  similar ;  some- 
times worse,  sometimes  not  so  bad,  but 
always  the  tale  of  forced  loans,  of 
looted  property,  of  outraged  women. 
The  atrocities  committed  upon  the 
priests  and  the  nuns  would  make  a  vol- 
ume of  themselves.  Everywhere  out- 
rages had  been  committed  against 
Americans  but  in  no  one  town  so  varied 
or  so  many  as  at  Durango. 


The  Revolutionary  Habit        41 

With  a  friend,  an  American  who 
knows  Mexico  and  the  Mexican  and  is 
their  very  good  and  comprehending 
amigo  —  I  had  gone  over  beyond  Atzca- 
potzalco  one  early  morning  of  Novem- 
ber, 1914,  to  visit  Villa,  who  had  ar- 
rived the  night  before  from  the  North. 
On  the  road  we  met  a  Mexican  mer- 
chant who  was  on  intimate  terms  with 
my  companion,  and  we  journeyed  on 
together.  Both  my  friend  and  I  who 
had  watched  the  "  dreaded "  Zapatis- 
tas come  into  Mexico  City,  and  had  cir- 
culated much  among  them,  were  unani- 
mous in  our  praise  of  their  conduct. 
My  friend  grew  eloquent  in  Spanish  ex- 
tolling the  Zapatista  soldiers  for  ask- 
ing bread,  instead  of  confiscating  it,  as 
the  recently  departed  Carranzista  sol- 
diers had  done.  We  thought  it  an  en- 
couraging sign  of  their  honesty  and 
their  sincerity  of  purpose.  But  the 
merchant  said  contemptously  "  poor 
fools,  they  know  no  better." 

He  correctly  expressed  the  Mexican 
spirit.  He  could  not  commend,  he 
could  not,  indeed,  understand  the  hesi- 
tation to  take  when  opportunity  of- 
fered. The  German  idea  of  might  is 
right  appeals  to  this  kind  of  Mexican; 


4g      What's  the  Matter  mih  Mexico? 

he  understands  that.  He  simply  can- 
not understand  respect  for  the  rights 
and  the  property  of  another  when  a 
man  has  the  might  and  is  above  the  law, 
as  are  the  battling  factions  in  Mexico. 


THE,  SUBMERGED  80  PER  CENT. 

HAVING  had  a  view  of  the  mixed 
native  and  the  Indian  under  the 
license  of  revolution  and  the  undisci- 
pline  of  the  "  army,"  let  us  see  him 
in  the  rough  or  normal,  always  remem- 
bering the  class  divisions  —  the  In- 
dians, the  mixed  peon  class,  the  mixed 
half-educated  class  (from  whom  and 
the  educated  politician-lawyer-doctor 
class,  come  the  trouble  makers)  the 
merchant,  and  the  capitalistic  class. 

It  must  be  confessed  that  the  half 
breed  either  in  or  out  of  the  army 
either  of  the  lower  or  the  middle  mixed 
class  is  the  more  complex  and  the  least 
amenable,  but,  except  on  occasions,  not 
the  despicable  man  tourists  so  often 
paint  him.  He  is  merely  Mexican,  and 
that  means  he  is  a  contradiction  of  vir- 
tues and  faults,  a  victim  of  fanaticism 
and  illusion,  easy  to  manage  and  to  get 
on  with  if  you  allow  for  his  foibles  and 
vanities.  He  is  courteous,  suspicious, 

hospitable,  not  courageous  as  we  under- 
43 


44<      What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

stand  courage,  yet  holds  his  life 
cheaply.  He  does  not  comprehend  and 
has  no  respect  for  easy  tolerance  in  his 
employer.  Madero,  according  to  Mex- 
ican ideas,  erred  in  not  condemning  to 
death  General  Reyes  and  Felix  Diaz 
when  he  had  them  in  his  power  after 
their  attempted  insurrection.  Because 
he  did  not  shoot  them,  the  people  called 
him  weak. 

Although  his  money  comes  to  him 
slowly  and  through  patient  toil,  he 
values  it  but  slightly  and  will  make 
little  effort  to  add  to  it  or  keep  it. 

Perhaps  a  personal  experience  will 
illustrate  their  happy-go-lucky  atti- 
tude. 

I  had  finished  my  inspection  of  Zaca- 
tecas  and  was  planning  to  break 
through  the  Villa  and  Carranza  lines 
which  faced  each  other  near  Agua  Cali- 
entes,  and  so  make  my  way  on  south. 
Transportation  was  at  a  premium  with 
the  railroad  held  by  the  military  and 
all  the  horses  confiscated.  High  and 
low  I  hunted  for  something  on  four 
legs,  without  success.  Finally  I  found 
an  old  fellow  at  Guadalupe,  seven  miles 
south,  who  had  a  kind  of  stage  and 
some  mules  which  the  Villistas  had  not 


The  Submerged  80  Per  Cent.      45 

thought  worth  taking.  He  agreed  to 
help  me  for  forty  pesos,  which  was 
about  twice  the  ordinary  tariff,  and  I 
accepted.  At  six  o'clock  the  next 
morning  he  was  at  my  door  in  Zaca- 
tecas,  and  in  a  few  moments  we  were 
on  our  way.  When  we  reached  his 
house  at  Guadalupe  he  changed  mules, 
and  having  taken  his  seat  again,  turned 
and  asked  me  to  pay  him.  I  of  course 
declined  to  pay  in  advance ;  said  I  was 
willing  to  prove  my  good  faith  by  pay- 
ing him  half  now  and  the  remainder 
when  I  reached  my  destination ;  that  my 
luggage  was  worth  at  least  the  with- 
held balance  should  I  be  shot  on  the 
road  or  fail  to  fulfil  my  obligation. 

We  argued  the  point  in  strict  accord 
with  the  Mexican  custom,  i.e.  back 
and  forth  and  in  and  out  and  then  all 
over  again,  while  the  mules  stood  doz- 
ing in  the  sun  and  their  owner  alter- 
nately rolled  cigarettes  and  told  his 
collected  family  and  the  gathered  at- 
tentive community,  the  dreadful  thing 
I  was  trying  to  do  to  him.  Finally, 
after  two  hours  by  the  watch,  I  took 
the  stand  that  he  could  either  accept 
twenty  pesos  now  and  drive  on  to 
Aguas  where  I  should  pay  him  twenty 


46      What's  tlie  Matter  with  Mexico? 

pesos  more,  or  he  could  take  me  back  to 
Zacatecas.  "  Bueno,"  said  he,  and 
back  we  started  over  the  seven  dusty 
rock  strewn  miles.  By  the  time  we  re- 
entered  the  town  at  noon,  my  sense  of 
humour,  as  I  recalled  the  scene  at 
Guadalupe  and  all  the  ridiculous  arti- 
fices he  had  employed  to  bring  me  to 
his  terms,  had  got  the  better  of  my 
anger  and  disappointment  at  not  get- 
ting on  my  way,  and  so  I  asked  him  as 
we  stopped  at  the  hotel,  how  much  I 
owed  him  for  the  scenic  drive  to  Guad- 
alupe and  back,  not  to  mention  the  rare 
opportunity  he  had  afforded  me  of  be- 
coming acquainted  with  him  and  his 
numerous  and  good  looking  family. 
He  beamed,  and  then  "  Nada  senbr, 
nada,"  said  he  with  such  unaffected 
suavity  that  forthwith  I  bought  out  a 
little  street  dulce  vendor  and  told  him 
to  take  it  all  home  to  his  family  with 
my  appreciative  compliments  for  a  very 
pleasant  and  instructive  morning. 
And  that  was  no  lie.  Twenty-one 
miles  of  driving,  the  use  of  four  mules, 
of  an  entire  morning, —  and  "  Por 
nada,  senor  ;  adios  !  " 

At  Del  Rio  was  a  station  restaurant 
which  gave  the  best  food  along  the  rail- 


The  Submerged  80  Per  Cent.      47 

road.  Once  after  paying  for  my  meal 
I  had  bought  cigarettes  and  matches 
amounting  to  twenty  centavos.  I  had 
only  a  peso  and  the  proprietor  had  no 
change.  "  Take  them  along,"  said  he, 
"  and  pay  me  another  day  when  you 
are  passing ! " 

In  a  restaurant  at  Jimenez  my 
breakfast  amounted  to  fifty  centavos. 
I  gave  the  waiter  a  peso  and  he  re- 
turned me  two  twenty-five  centavo 
•pieces.  Wishing  to  give  him  a  tip  of 
fifteen  centavos  I  asked  him  to  make 
the  change,  and  as  he  could  not  get  it 
in  the  house,  suggested  his  going  next 
door.  But  he  shrugged  his  shoulders 
as  he  said,  "  Gracious,  senor,  otra  vez  " 
r —  another  time.  .  «**- 

They  are  full  of  emotion,  but  lack 
the  first  principles  of  consideration. 
Scarcely  a  household  that  does  not  have 
its  pets,  yet  the  men  ride  and  treat 
their  horses  cruelly.  They  are  full  of 
polite  phrases,  prolific  with  presents, 
yet  lack  comprehension  of  loyalty, 
gratitude,  team  work.  They  cultivate 
flowers  and  they  have  good  music; 
everywhere  is  the  evidence  of  both. 
Even  along  the  railroad  in  the  freight- 
car  homes  of  the  peons  you  will  see 


48      What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

hardly  a  one  which  does  not  have  its 
tomato  or  kerosene  cans  of  potted 
plants ;  and  every  small  town  has  its 
own  most  excellent  band.  People  so 
kindly  to  their  children  —  children  so 
happy  with  so  little  —  and  so  fond  of 
flowers  and  music  have  qualities  which 
promise  much  with  development. 

Until  they  have  had   the  benefit   of 
training  under  the  foreigner  their  sense 
of  responsibility  appears  to  be  as  vague 
-/is  that  of  a  child. 

'Once  I  travelled  on  a  train  of  freight 
cars  carrying  a  company  of  soldiers 
to  Irapuato.  The  track  had  been  but 
recently  and  roughly  laid  and  fre- 
quently we  came  to  sudden  and  unex- 
pected dips  into  and  out  of  shallow 
little  gullies  where  the  destroyed  bridge 
had  not  been  replaced.  We  kept, 
nevertheless,  at  a  breakneck  speed;  the 
box  car  rocking  so  violently  it  seemed 
as  if  every  minute  must  be  our  last  on 
the  rails  as  we  swayed  from  side  to  side 
and  lurched  into  and  were  jerked  out 
again  of  the  "  shoo-fly's  " —  as  such 
improvised  crossings  are,  I  believe, 
called  in  railroad  parlance. 

An  anxious  trainman  in  our  car,  who 
probably  had  seen  better  railroad  days, 


The  Submerged  80  Per  Cent.      49 

put  on  the  emergency  brake ;  and  when 
the  train  came  to  a  stop  and  the  cause 
was  discovered,  that  conservative  train- 
man was  arrested  by  the  indignant  mili- 
tary officer  in  charge  and  held  under 
guard  in  the  corner  of  the  car  until  we 
reached  the  end  of  our  exciting,  not  to 
say  perilous  journey. 

On  another  occasion  on  another 
troop  train  we  were  coming  down  a  stiff 
and  winding  grade  from  Cardenas, 
having  to  stop  every  now  and  again  to 
clear  the  track  of  obstructing  rocks 
and  dirt  that  had  either  slid  down  from 
the  mountain  side  or  been  blasted  there 
by  some  of  the  neighbouring  "  other 
constitutionalists."  Between  these  halts 
the  train  pitched  forward  at  so  lively 
a  pace  that  I  found  a  seat  in  the  open 
doorway  of  the  box  car  preferable  to 
being  tossed  around  inside  of  it  from 
floor  to  ceiling. 

On  one  of  our  sprints  towards  what 
appeared  like  a  jumping  off  place,  the 
engineer  at  his  post  and  the  conductor 
at  my  side  entered  upon  a  hilarious 
duel  of  badinage,  the  engineer  leaning 
from  his  cab  window,  munching  a  ba- 
nana which  he  brandished  at  us,  shout- 
ing and  laughing  with  apparently  no 


50      What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

thought  of  what  we  might  encounter  as 
_we_sped  on  around  the  sharp  curve. 

Their  attitude  towards  what  we  call 
honesty,  is  a  curious  one  and  to  us 
quite  incomprehensible  without  a  com- 
plete knowledge  of  their  character  and 
a  sympathetic  study  of  the  environ- 
ment under  which  it  has  been  developed. 
In  the  matter  of  private  engagements, 
as  servant,  foreman,  or  boss,  on  the 
ranch,  in  the  mine,  on  the  oil  field,  in 
the  factory,  in  the  machine  shop,  they 
have  shown  both  honesty  and  loyalty, 
where  trusted ;  but  you  must  show  that 
you  do  trust  them  or  they  are  sure  to 
prove  doubt  well  founded.  They  have 
been  found  over  and  again  in  these 
troublous  times  entirely  dependable  by 
many  Americans  who  have  been  com- 
pelled to  leave  their  property  in  their 
sole  charge.  My  feeling  is  always  that 
if  you  give  a  square  deal  to  the  average 
decent  Mexican  of  this  class  he  will  not 
fail  you  in  a  position  of  trust;  such  at 
least  has  been  the  experience  of  many 
foreigners  in  Mexico. 

But  they  do  not  trust  each  other. 
Among  themselves  there  is  little  if  any 
reliability,  because  they  lack  the  faith 
in  one  another  that  they  have  in  the 


The  Submerged  80  Per  Cent.      51 

American,  who  they  know  by  experience 
keeps  his  word  and  pays  his  bills. 
That  is  the  crux  of  the  matter;  you 
must  keep  faith  with  them  —  especially 
with  the  Indians.  Many  are  the  in- 
stances where  the  servants  and  the  em- 
ployes of  the  master  or  the  company,  I 
have  saved  property  from  the  looting 
soldiers. 

An  ex-Boer  who  had  served  his  cause 
with  valour  and  distinction,  told  me  at 
his  hacienda  that  his  major-domo,  in 
whom  he  placed  the  utmost  trust,  was 
yet  not  on  an  equal  footing  of  trust 
with  his  own  family  consisting  of  wife 
and  daughter,  also  employed  in  the 
house.  Each  of  the  three  had  a  key  to 
the  family  strong  box,  but  none  was 
ever  permitted  to  go  to  it  without  the 
other  two  being  present. 

A  boy  of  fourteen  employed  on  an 
American  property  near  Victoria  was 
taken  off  with  an  automobile  confis- 
cated by  Carranzistas.  The  roads 
were  heavy  and  the  car  stalled,  where- 
upon the  soldiers,  having  neither  me- 
chanical knowledge  nor  patience, 
abandoned  it  and  continued  their 
journey,  taking  the  youngster  with 
them.  Next  day,  however,  the  lad 


52      What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

escaped,  hid  in  the  bush,  made  his  way 
back  to  the  stranded  car  when  the 
coast  was  clear,  finally  extricated  it, 
and  returned  to  his  company  four  days 
later. 

In  Oaxaca  an  English  mine  super- 
intendent pointed  out  an  Indian  he  had 
been  sending  alone  every  month  for 
several  years  with  two  thousand  dollars 
on  a  four  day  journey  to  the  mines; 
and,  he  added,  that  although  the  man 
might,  as  others  did,  take  a  few  cen- 
tavos  from  a  fellow  worker,  yet  he  had 
always  fulfilled  the  trust  the  company 
reposed  in  him  to  the  very  last  centavo. 

A  merchant  in  Mexico  City,  a 
Frenchman  with  a  large  native  trade, 
told  me  that  in  eighteen  years  of  busi- 
ness he  had  not  lost  $£,000.  Mexicans 
take  a  long  time  to  pay,  he  said,  but  do 
pay  their  bills. 

If  you  stop  to  buy  at  one  of  the 
many  little  street  stands  or  of  the 
pedlar  along  the  road,  he,  or  more 
likely  she,  appears  to  take  an  actual 
interest  in  your  getting  your  money's 
worth,  picking  out  the  biggest,  or  the 
best  conditioned,  or  the  most  highly 
decorated  of  her  stock. 

Public  office  or  position  in  a  semi- 


The  Submerged  80  Per  Cent.      53 

public  capacity,  on  the  other  hand,  ap- 
pears to  be  regarded  not  so  much  as 
a  trust  as  an  opportunity. 

I  recall  a  meeting  with  the  well- 
educated  and  intelligent  son  of  a  dis- 
tinguished Mexican  who  had  given  his 
country  long  and  valued  service,  being 
responsible,  among  other  similar  tasks 
under  the  Diaz  administration,  for  the 
erection  of  a  very  large  and  complete 
group  of  public-service  buildings. 
Commenting  on  these,  I  referred  espe- 
cially to  the  superiority  of  their  ap- 
pointments and  the  thoroughness  of 
their  equipment.  "  Ah,"  said  the  son, 
"  there  was  a  chance !  Had  I  been 
older  at  the  time  those  buildings  were 
given  my  father  to  supervise,  I  would 
have  feathered  the  family  nest,  as  my 
father  failed  to  do;  but  I  was  too 
young  and  my  father  was  too  honest." 

The  train  carrying  refugees  out  of 
Jalisco  State  to  Manzanillo,  stopped 
just  outside  of  Guadalajara,  where  it 
was  boarded  by  the  Chief  of  Police  of 
that  city,  who  in  full  uniform  went 
through  the  train  making  a  thorough 
collection  of  all  the  moneys  the  pas- 
sengers had.  Even  Madero  with  his 
education  and  his  higher  ideals  could 


54      What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

not  restrain  the  hereditary  instinct  of 
the  man  in  power  to  milk  the  public 
cow.  At  Saltillo  in  the  State  of  Coa- 
huila,  where  Carranza  was  governor 
before  he  became  revolutionist,  I  found 
two  inspectors  on  the  trolley  line,  in 
addition  to  the  conductor  for  every 
car;  three  men  on  the  ticket  job. 

When  I  visited  Zapata,  his  chief  of 
staff  exhibited  some  recently  coined 
money,  saying,  with  a  considerable  show 
of  pride,  that  we  "  at  great  sacrifice 
have  made  silver  pesos  for  our  peo- 
ple." The  money  in  question  had  been 
made  out  of  the  bullion  Zapata  had  con- 
fiscated from  the  Ortiz  mine ! 

A  German  had  a  ranch  in  the  San 
Luis  country  and  decided  to  put  in 
modern  machinery  in  order  to  utilise 
the  first  grade  of  his  workmen,  while 
he  kept  also  the  old  plant  going  for  the 
second  grade  men.  He  picked  out  the 
best  of  his  peons,  all  of  whom  were 
being  paid  one  peso  a  day ;  these  he 
broke  in  on  the  new  machinery  and 
gradually  increased  their  wages  until 
finally  they  were  getting  two  pesos  and 
a  half.  The  strange  new  plant,  the 
learning,  etc.,  kept  the  men  interested, 
and  diligent,  but  with  the  novelty  gone 


The  Submerged  80  Per  Cent.      55 

and  more  than  double  the  money  com- 
ing in  than  they  had  been  used  to  re- 
ceiving, they  began  to  lay  off  for  a  few 
days  at  a  time.  Places  of  amusement 
were  provided  in  an  effort  to  hold  them ; 
a  shop  with  articles  at  merely  the  cost 
and  freight  price  was  opened  that  they 
might  spend  their  money  where  they 
would  not  be  robbed,  and  everything 
done  to  keep  them  happy ;  for  they  were 
desirable  workmen,  and  the  employer 
was  a  widely  known  friend  of  the  Mex- 
ican, whom  he  understood  and  encour- 
aged to  better  things.  Finally,  how- 
ever, these  men  began  to  strike;  then 
came  trouble,  another  strike,  and  at 
last  they  quit.  After  loafing  around 
until  their  money  was  exhausted,  they 
went  to  work  on  an  adjoining  hacienda 
for  seventy-five  centavos  a  day! 

They  are  quick  to  take  offence,  to 
fly  into  ungovernable  passion,  and  to 
violent  action.  Yet  generally  they  are 
to  be  handled  if  you  go  at  it  the  right 
way,  despite  the  untoward  experience 
of  the  San  Luis  haciendado.  You 
must  see  their  point  of  view,  generally 
very  difficult  to  find,  be  patient,  gentle, 
but  firm  when  there  is  need.  You 
must  never  bluff,  or  permit  yourself 


56      What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

to  be  bluffed;  above  all  you  must  never 
employ  empty  threats,  otherwise  both 
their  respect  and  your  control  are 
gone.  In  a  word  you  must  consider 
their  mental  calibre  and  their  under 
development.  They  are  prone  to  riot, 
but  such  breaks  can  usually  be  checked 
if  you  are  on  the  ground  at  the  very 
start  —  and  to  know  the  Christian 
names  of  some  of  them  is  most  helpful 
on  such  an  occasion. 

A  mine  manager  in  the  Santa  Eulalia 
district  had  an  experience  very  much 
in  point.  The  mine  was  shut  down  for 
the  greater  part  but  the  company  kept 
open  all  the  time  one  or  another  of  its 
extensions,  using  alternately  different 
gangs  that  all  in  camp  might  get  a 
little  work.  It  was  money  out  of 
pocket  for  the  company  of  course,  but 
it  was  giving  their  men  enough  to  keep 
body  and  soul  together  while  their  com- 
patriots went  on  wrecking  the  country. 
For  several  days  the  men  had  been 
gathering  in  loud  talking  little  groups 
during  noon  hour  and  generally  show- 
ing the  sullen  symptoms  which  presage 
a  demonstration.  Some  of  the  consti- 
tutionalist recruiting  agents  had  also 
recently  visited  the  section  with  their 


The  Submerged  80  Per  Cent.      57 

highly  coloured  stories  of  the  "  extra  5> 
(loot)  to  be  made  in  army  service,  and 
the  poison  apparently  had  begun  to 
work. 

At  this  inauspicious  moment  it  hap- 
pened that  the  local  jefe  embargoed  the 
ore  tramway  connecting  with  the  rail- 
road, for  one  of  the  thousand  and  one 
untenable  excuses  local  jefes  are  ever 
in  these  days  creating  as  an  effective 
first  aid  to  the  extraction  of  the  for- 
eigner peso.  As  this  cut  off  means  of 
delivery  to  the  mill  the  manager  shut 
down  the  gang  on  the  shaft  hoist. 

This  was  the  opportunity  of  the  mal- 
contents and  the  announcement  was  a 
signal  for  general  disturbance  on  the 
property.  Demands  were  made  not 
only  that  the  hoist  be  started  but  every 
extension  opened,  and  all  the  men  be 
set  to  work.  It  looked  like  a  riot,  but 
the  manager  had  lived  twenty  years  in 
Mexico  and  knew  his  people.  He 
called  a  meeting  and  after  a  short  gen- 
eral talk  on  the  situation  finished  by 
saying :  "  This  trouble  is  yours  as 
well  as  ours ;  you  and  I  are  in  the  same 
boat.  We  want  to  help  each  other  to 
live  and  we  can't  because  your  jefe 
won't  let  us.  Now  I  want  you  to  help 


58      What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

me,  so  that  I  can  help  you.  I  want 
you  Juan,  and  you  Miguel,  and  you 
Jose  to  come  with  me  as  representing 
these  miners  here,  to  the  jefe  and  ask 
him  to  give  us  all  a  chance  to  do  what 
we  want  to  do." 

That  was  the  end  of  the  riot ;  the  sop 
to  their  vanity  in  the  selection  of  sev- 
eral of  their  own  number  — -  so  favour- 
ably regarded  as  to  be  called  by  their 
Christian  names  —  was  the  counter 
irritant  to  the  Villa  recruiting  agent. 
The  jefe  was  visited,  made  the  cus- 
tomary impassioned  speech  to  the  men 
of  his  devotion  to  their  interests  and  to 
the  revolutionary  cause,  received  one 
hundred  pesos  from  the  manager  "  on 
the  quiet,"  and  the  camp  settled  again 
to  its  revolutionary  times  jog,  to  wait 
for  the  opening  of  the  main  line  and  a 
chance  to  do  something  towards  paying 
expenses. 

Normally  the  Indian,  as  distin- 
guished from  the  peiado  of  the  mixed 
blood,  is  an  even  dispositipned, 
credulous,  hospitable,  philosopher,  ab- 
solutely without  self-consciousness.  A 
soldier  carrying  his  baby  on  his  back 
and  his  rifle  on  his  arm,  his  woman  fol- 
lowing, was  no  uncommon  sight  in 


The  Submerged  80  Per  Cent.      59 

Mexico  when  Zapata  had  control  of 
the  City;  and  time  after  time  have  I 
had  one  of  these  approach  with  hat  off 
and  ask  for  a  few  centavos  for  food  — 
this  Indian  with  his  rifle  in  hand  and 
his  body  hung  about  with  belts  of 
cartridges,  who  had  the  power  to  walk 
into  any  shop  and  help  himself  as  the 
constitutionalist  soldiers  of  the  mixed 
blood  had  done  before  him. 

In  any  city  in  Mexico  you  may  see 
the  Indian  in  rags  and  holes  moving 
among  the  best  dressed  without  slight- 
est thought  of  any  difference  between 
their  clothes  and  his ;  he  goes  every- 
where unembarrassed.  He  accepts 
death,  the  loss  of  money,  the  smallpox, 
as  a  visitation  for  occult  reasons  to 
him  unfathomable. 

As  illustrating  how  cheaply  he  holds 
life,  Alfred  B.  Mason,  one  time  rail- 
road engineer  engaged  in  the  Tehuan- 
tepee  country,  tells  a  story  out  of  his 
own  experience.  Mr.  Mason  was  sit- 
ting in  his  car  at  the  end  of  the  track 
when  he  saw  three  rurales  come  riding 
out  of  the  jungle,  each  leading  a  bound 
peon  at  the  end  of  a  rope,  with  a 
sobbing  woman  following  on  behind. 
Asking  the  trouble  the  explanation  was 


60      What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

made  to  him  that,  "  one  peon  "  whom 
we  will  call  A  "  had  quarrelled  with 
B  about  the  woman.  So  A  hired  C  to 
kill  B,  paying  him  his  price,  a  whole 
peso,  fifty  cents  in  our  money  (at  that 
time)  in  advance.  C  did  not  know  B 
by  sight.  So  C  hired  D  for  a  quarter 
of  the  peso  to  point  out  B.  This  done 
C  knifed  B.  The  rurales  had  gathered 
in  A,  C,  and  D,  and  the  woman  in  the 
case." 

As  he  is  reckless  of  his  own  life  so 
he  is  wanton  in  the  destruction  of  other 
life  when  a  latent  cupidity  is  developed 
or  his  hatred  engendered.  He  is  more 
unmoral  than  immoral,  more  uncivilised 
than  either.  He  is  ready  to  serve,  or 
to  build  or  to  destroy,  according  to  the 
temper  of  those  that  lead  him. 

The  excuses  made  by  the  constitu- 
tionalist leaders  for  the  promiscuous 
killing  of  noncombatants,  and  the 
fiendish  atrocities  visited  upon  the  cap- 
tured towns,  that  their  soldiers  "  got 
out  of  hand,"  are  discredited  by  the 
character  of  the  Mexican,  who  is  in 
truth  the  most  easily  influenced  and 
easiest  guided  man  in  all  the  Americas. 
It's  the  leaders,  from  the  top  down 
through  all  the  long  list  of  looting  and 


The  Submerged  80  Per  Cent.      61 

butchering  generals,  that  are  respon- 
sible for  Mexico's  outrages  and  must  be 
held  so  before  the  world.  These  are  the 
generals  that  declaim  so  earnestly  about 
the  "  foul  foreign  hand "  that  has 
"  robbed  our  poor  people,"  and  who 
are  stealing  from  them  with  both  hands 
at  this  very  hour  of  my  writing.  From 
the  mixed  class  come  these  officers  — 
not  the  self-respecting  well  established 
middle  class  —  that  class  which  fur- 
nishes also  the  most  offensive,  most 
deceitful,  and  untrustworthy  creature 
on  earth.  These  are  the  trouble 
makers;  the  men  who  hunt  in  packs 
like  coyotes ;  the  revolver  carrying 
braggarts  of  the  towns,  who  bully  the 
"  submerged  "  of  their  countrymen  for 
whose  "  uplift "  they  are  reported  to 
be  so  concerned. 

In  a  Chihuahua  restaurant  I  sat  on 
a  stool  at  the  counter  next  to  an  officer 
who  pulled  his  gun  on  the  waiter  be- 
cause the  latter  was  slow  bringing  the 
coffee.  At  Puebla  before  a  saloon  full 
I  saw  an  officer  force  at  gun  point  the 
bartender  to  deliver  him  champagne 
without  pay.  On  a  train  I  saw  an  un- 
armed servitor  shot  by  his  officer- 
master  for  not  getting  some  bottles  of 


62     What's  the  Matte i  mill  Mexico? 

beer  at  a  station  where  we  had  stopped. 

The  revolution  has  raised  to  unac- 
customed importance  and  authority  all 
kinds  of  low  born,  ignorant  men  who 
naturally  do  not  know  how  to  use  their 
new  power  and  make  it  the  medium  of 
domineering  over  their  men  and  of  vain- 
glorious display  in  their  little  world. 

At  Rodriguez  I  came  into  personal 
contact  with  one  such  officer  who  was 
entraining  his  men  for  Monterrey. 
The  summer  before  he  had  driven  the 
threshing  machine  on  a  large  ranch 
some  fifty  miles  to  the  north.  Now  as 
I  beheld  him  he  was  a  full  fledged  colonel 
with  about  two  hundred  and  fifty  men 
ununiformed  and  variously  armed. 
But  the  colonel  was  uniformed  for  the 
entire  outfit.  He  wore  the  usual 
steeple  crown  hat  heavily  laden  with 
silver  trimming  around  band  and  brim ; 
silver  braiding  full  two  inches  wide  ran 
the  length  of  his  trouser  seams  and 
around  the  collar  and  cuffs  of  his 
flannel  shirt.  His  saddle  and  bridle 
were  without  ornament  —  he  probably 
hadn't  yet  caught  any  one  owning 
better  —  and  he  was  mounted  on  a 
scrawny  little  horse  which  he  continu- 
ously prodded  with  enormous  spurs  to 


The  Submerged  80  Per  Cent.      63 

make  it  simulate  the  spirit  the  poor 
beast  obviously  lacked;  he  carried  a 
rifle,  a  pearl-handled  revolver,  and  a 
dagger. 

For  no  visible  purpose  except  to  ex- 
hibit himself,  he  kept  riding  up  and 
down  and  around  and  over  and  through 
his  men  and  everything  and  evervbodv 
that  happened  to  be  within  or  near  the 
only  approach  to  the  train  which  he 
had  exempted  for  a  show  ring.  He  ap- 
peared to  find  greatest  joy  in  swinging 
his  horse  into  a  group  of  onlookers  and 
scattering  them  in  consternation. 

I  had  put  down  my  blanket  and 
saddle  bags  somewhat  apart  from  the 
field  of  his  cavorting,  at  the  end  of  the 
troopers.  I  had  shown  no  interest  in 
his  performance  and  perhaps  that 
piqued  the  colonel,  for  on  a  sudden  he 
came  rushing  and  buck- jumping  his 
much  overworked  nag  across  my  blan- 
ket where,  a  few  moments  before,  I  had 
been  half  reclining  and  smoking.  He 
seemed  much  pleased  with  the  exploit, 
as  did  all  the  native  spectators,  so  I 
returned  to  my  blanket  to  dispute  an- 
other sally,  which  however  he  did  not 
make  although  he  circled  around  me  a 
number  of  times. 


64      What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

The  incident  is  so  typical  of  the 
simple,  vain  nature  of  this  new  crop  of 
generals  and  others  in  authority  under 
the  new  order  of  things,  that  I  have 
been  tempted  to  recite  the  otherwise 
foolish  little  story. 

The  Mexican  dearly  loves  a  "  demon- 
stration " ;  it  matters  not  if  he  has 
personal  ground  or  impulse,  or  even  if 
'cause  be  entirely  wanting;  he  simply 
wants  to  do  something  —  to  parade,  to 
caper,  to  yell. 

During  a  patriotic  demonstration  in 
Guadalajara  a  newsboy  ran  alongside 
the  automobile  of  an  English  friend  of 
mine,  crying,  "  Mueran  los  gringos " 
(Kill  the  gringos).  "  Why  do  you  say 
that?  "  called  the  Englishman,  who  was 
a  patron  of  the  young  man  and  knew 
him  well.  "  Oh,  just  for  the  yelling," 
shouted  back  the  lad  as  he  went  on  up 
the  street  indulging  in  the  popular  and 
national  pastime.  In  this  engaging 
game  of  "  showing  off  "  the  automobile 
is  a  wonderful  new  instrument ;  it  has 
speed  and  noise,  and  the  half  breed 
adores  both.  Particularly  he  enjoys 
the  horn  and  presses  the  button  on 
smallest  excuse  that  the  lowly  pedes- 
trian may  gaze  enviously  upon  him  as 


The  Submerged  80  Per  Cent.      65 

he  speeds  furiously  past,  mufflers  wide 
open  —  just  like  a  certain  "  new  "  type 
in  our  own  country.  But  of  all  demon- 
strations, the  Mexican  is  at  his  best 
on  horseback.  He  loves  to  make  his 
mount  prance  and  rear  for  the  admira- 
tion of  beholders,  or,  racing  wildly 
through  a  crowded  street,  to  pull  up  ; 
short  before  the  shrinking,  terror- 
stricken  women  at  the  crossing.  ^? 

As  a  whole  he  is  not  a  disturber  of  j 
the  peace,  and  the  tranquillity  of 
Mexico  City  during  the  interval  be-  . 
tween  the  going  of  the  Carranzistas  and 
the  coming  of  the  Zapatistas  in  No- 
vember, 1914,  is  an  eloquent  tribute  to 
their  generally  peaceful  disposition. 
Obregon  and  Blanco  had  been  detailed 
to  hold  the  city  while  the  Carranzistas 
were  rejoining  their  First  Chief  who 
had  led  the  advance  in  the  retreat  be- 
fore Villa.  Both  Obregon  and  Blanco 
had  warned  the  city  of  the  ravages  sure 
to  be  committed  upon  the  success  of 
Zapata  in  the  sporadic  fighting  which 
^as  at  that  time  within  hearing.  And, 
having  issued  fervid  manifestos  of  devo- 
tion to  their  protection  and  loyalty  to 
the  cause  of  the  people,  those  valiant 
generals,  Obregon  first,  Blanco  follow- 


66      What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

ing,  deserted  the  city,  leaving  it,  as 
they  had  said  and  no.  doubt  believed, 
to  the  looting  of  the  Zapatistas. 

During  this  interval  while  the  city 
was  without  even  its  police,  who  had 
been  taken  away  by  the  considerate 
Obregon  and  Blanco,  another  American 
and  I  wandered  all  over  that  quarter 
where  the  very  poor  and  the  pelados 
and  the  turbulent  element  lives,  without 
having  the  smallest  personal  annoyance 
and  without  seeing  any  indication  of 
disturbance.  There  was  literally  noth- 
ing to  prevent  riot  or  looting,  the  City 
was  at  the  mercy  of  its  worst  element, 
as  Obregon  and  Blanco  intended  it 
should  be  —  for  they  both  returned 
hatred  for  the  City  which  held  them  in 
contempt  —  yet  there  was  at  no  time 
sign  of  disquiet.  To  my  mind  that 
constitutes  a  highly  credible  record  for  I 
a  city  of  five  hundred  thousand,  and 
sufficiently  answers  the  excuse  of  the 
Constitutionalist  generals  that  they 
"  could  not  control "  their  men.  I  re- 
peat what  I  have  already  said:  the 
Mexican  people  are  the  easiest  led  and 
the  easiest  controlled  of  any  people  on 
this  continent. 

And   there   is  no  more  fitting  place 


The  Submerged  80  Per  Cent.      67 

than  here  to  say,  that  in  all  my  wan- 
derings over  the  face  of  the  earth  I 
have  j^et  to  find  a  land  where  a  smile 
and  a  courteous  word  gets  you  so  far 
as  it  does  in  Mexico ;  among  el  pueblo, 
the  great  undeveloped  mass  of  Mexico's 
fifteen  millions,  mind  you,  not  among 
the  politicians  who  fatten  upon  their 
ready  credulity,  or  among  the  orators 
and  "  patriots  "  that  hypnotise  official 
Washington,  or  among  the  underbred 
and  lawless  leaders  of  the  revolution. 
During  seven  months'  knocking  about 
the  country  in  revolution,  in  all  my  de- 
liberate seeking  out  of  the  low  and 
crowded  sections  of  the  cities,  I  was  not 
once  jostled ;  I  never  had  any  one  bump 
into  me  even  on  Avenida  de  San  Fran- 
cisco with  its  slowly  moving  crowd  of 
idlers;  I  never  had  any  one  tread  on 
my  feet  in  the  unbelievably  crammed 
and  unsteadily  running  railway  cars; 
among  the  pelados  I  always  found  po- 
liteness —  it  may  not  have  been  as  deep 
as  the  heart  but  was  at  least  agreeable 
and  suggestive.  Of  course  I  am  re- 
ferring to  where  and  when  revolutionist 
bands  or  the  bandits  were  not  operat- 
ing. The  fortunes  of  war  bring  chance 
of  a  hold-up  if  you  are  riding  across 


68      What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

country  on  a  good  horse  —  any  old  nag 
is  a  good  horse  these  days  —  or  of 
robbery  if  you  leave  yourself  open  to 
it  in  town  or  out.  But  at  any  rate,  a 
smile  and  "  con  su  permiso  "  (with  your 
permission)  got  me  past  all  ordinary 
obstacles ;  even  through  three  sets  of 
sentries  that  guarded  the  house  and  its 
passageways  where  Villa  and  Zapata 
had  their  first  eventful  meeting  at 
Xochimilco. 

The  drudging,  trustworthy  cargador 
all  but  staggering  under  his  load;  the 
labourer  crossing  the  walk  with  un- 
wieldy plank  atop  his  head;  the  criada 
sweeping  down  the  steps ;  the  conductor 
of  the  trolley ;  the  public  cochero  — 
all,  every  last  one  of  them,  prefaces  his 
approach  with  "  con  su  permiso." 
The  elevator  boy  in  the  office  building 
comes  back  to  the  fourtK  floor  which 
you  have  passed  unheeding,  and,  when 
you  thank  him,  immediately  responds 
with  "  por  nada,  seilor  "  (for  nothing, 
sir)  ;  the  boatman  soliciting  your  pat- 
ronage which  you  withhold,  says, 
"  gracias  "  and  "  adios," —  the  salute 
friendly. 

An  old  man,  unkempt,  dirty,  and  in 
rags,  sat  in  a  doorway  trying  to  roll 


The  Submerged  80  Per  Cent.      69 

a  cigarette  of  a  bit  of  newspaper.  I 
stooped  and  handed  him  the  remainder 
of  a  package  from  my  pocket;  and  his 
acknowledgment  was  courtly,  no  less. 

Nowhere  does  the  soft,  kind,  compre- 
hending word  turn  wrath  as  it  does  in 
Mexico  among  these  docile,  polite,  and 
very  readily  swayed  grown-up  children 
—  for  that's  what  they  are.  You  must 
know  them  through  long  association,  if 
you  would  manage  them,  you  must  be 
sympathetic,  you  must  like  them  —  as 
you  will  grow  to  do ;  you  must  under- 
stand their  natures  and  their  point  of 
view;  consider  their  irresponsibility, 
their  untrained  condition,  and  know 
their  strange  inconsistency. 

For  these  people  who  are  so  kind  to 
their  children,  so  courteous  to  friend 
and  stranger,  who  love  flowers  and 
music,  are  of  the  same  class  that  stood 
around  the  burning  bodies  of  the  inno- 
cent victims  of  the  Decena  Tragica  in 
February,  1913,  laughing  uproariously 
at  the  contortions  of  arms  and  legs  as 
they  twitched  under  the  stimulation  of 
the  flames ;  they  are  of  the  class  from 
whom  came  the  soldiers  that  looted  the 
churches  at  Monterrey,  wearing  in 
their  sombreros  the  picture  of  the 


70     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

sacred  Guadalupe  shrine  while  they 
burned  the  altars  and  its  effigies ;  of 
the  same  soldiers  that  under  Emilio 
Madero  at  Torreon  tied  to  horses  and 
tore  asunder  literally  limb  by  limb  the 
wretched  Chinamen  who  dared  to  resist 
the  looting  of  their  houses.  These  are 
the  same  that  go  into  raptures  over  pet 
dogs  —  and  let  others  feed  them. 

Yet  these,  the  Indians,  the  illiterate 
mixed  class,  particularly  the  Indians, 
are  the  most  dependable  people  in 
Mexico.  From  these  come  the  loyal 
servants,  the  trustworthy  foremen,  the 
sincere  friends;  from  these  have  come 
the  strongest  men  Mexico  has  produced 
—  Alvarez,  Juarez,  Diaz ;  and  of  this 
great  trio,  Juarez  was  a  full  and  Diaz 
a  half  blood  Indian. 

I  must  sound  my  praise  too  of  the 
women  of  these  people  —  patient,  en- 
during, devoted ;  they  nurse  Mexico, 
they  till  Mexico,  they  feed  Mexico,  and 
God  only  knows  the  depths  of  the 
agony  they  are  suffering  for  Mexico 
because  of  the  fiendish  lawlessness  of 
their  half  savage  men  whom  their  own 
country  cannot  and  their  big  northern 
brother  will  not  restrain.  They  are 
the  commissariat  of  the  army,  following 


The  Submerged  80  Per  Cent.      71 

the  soldiers  with  fortitude  and  doing 
their  arduous  duties  efficiently,  untir- 
ingly ;  the  food  scouts,  cooks,  and  wash- 
erwomen ;  the  first  and  the  last  on  the 
camping  job;  and  on  the  road  the  least 
comfortably  provided  for,  either  pur- 
suing their  vocations  on  top  the  box 
car,  or  resting  on  platforms  fastened 
to  the  iron  truss  rods  under  the  car. 
It  was  the  criadas  —  house  maids  — 
that  braved  the  street  fusillade  to  bring 
food  to  the  home  during  those  tragic 
ten  days  while  Huerta  and  Felix  Diaz 
shot  up  the  City  of  Mexico ;  and  of  the 
several  thousand  innocent  citizens 
killed  through  their  perfidious  compact, 
women  furnished  the  greater  pro- 
portion. 

And  she  gets  small  acknowledgment 
from  her  men.  I  recall  an  incident 
somewhat  illustrative  of  masculine 
Mexican  attitude  generally.  At  Tlaca- 
lula  on  the  way  to  Mitla  I  watched  a 
middle  aged  man  help  his  companion, 
a  tottering  white  haired  old  woman,  off 
the  train.  From  her  hands  and  arms 
he  took  her  many  bundles  as  she  es- 
sayed the  steps  —  a  "moral"  (grass 
woven  bag)  filled  to  the  very  top,  a 
pottery  jug,  a  roll  of  cloth,  a  paper 


72      What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

wrapped  parcel.  When  she  was  firmly 
on  the  ground,  he  handed  them  all  back 

I  to  her;  and  then  they  two,  she  thus 
heavily  laden,  he  with  only  his  cane, 
walked  down  the  platform  and  disap- 
peared around  the  corner  —  into  a 
waiting  coach,  I  hope. 

From  Tecalco  to  Mexico  City,  one 
hundred  miles  or  more,  two  sisters 
journeyed  with  a  baby  and  a  burro 
which  they  rode  turn  and  turn  about, 
to  carry  a  much  needed  document  to 
their  feeble  old  father  who  earlier,  while 
the  train  yet  ran,  had  gone  to  the  City 
hoping  to  free  himself  from  some  con- 
fiscatory  measure  of  the  Carranzistas. 
The  paper  delivered,  one  sister,  the 
younger,  and  the  burro  remained  with 
the  father;  the  other  with  her  baby 
walked  back  to  keep  her  mother  com- 
pany in  the  disrupted  home. 

I  take  my  hat  off  to  these  women  of 
"„  Mexico;  they  will  be  the  salvation  of 
that  distracted  land;  meanwhile,  like 
their  English,  French,  and  Belgian  sis- 
ters in  anguish,  they  are  the  spirit  be- 
hind the  best  in  their  men. 

Between  el  pueblo,  and  the  small  well 
born  and  educated  classes,  there  are 
the  orators,  the  politicians,  the  social- 


The  Submerged  80  Per  Cent.      73 

ists,  and  the  soldiers  of  fortune,  a  class 
of  parvenus  risen  by  chance  and  not  by 
merit,  "  ignorant  and  full  of  preten- 
sions," as  Mme.  de  la  Barca,  who  knew 
them  so  well,  says  in  her  very  interest- 
ing memoirs.  It  is  futile  to  argue  with 
a  Mexican  of  this  class, —  vain,  boast- 
ful, obstinate  and  incompetent;  he  has 
all  the  advantage  of  you  at  the  very 
start,  for  he  does  not  restrict  himself  to 
facts.  How  he  proceeds  in  national 
matters  has  been  thoroughly  shown  by 
the  patriots  now  occupying  our  atten- 
tion in  Mexico,  but  perhaps  an  example 
of  how  Huerta  sought  to  work  up  pub- 
lic opinion  against  America  offers  a 
good  and  typical  illustration  of  the 
methods  commonly  employed  as  quite 
ethical. 

This  unscrupulous  traitor  whose 
short  reign  was  one  of  graft  and  terror, 
and  whom  the  American  Administra- 
tion wisely  did  not  recognise,  sent  tele- 
grams throughout  Mexico,  after  the 
landing  at  Veracruz,  saying  that 
the  Naval  School  Cadets  had  sunk  the 
United  States  battleship  Louisiana  f 
that  the  federal  troops  had  captured 
El  Paso,  Brownsville,  and  San  Antonio  ; 
that  the  American  soldiers  at  Vera- 


74?      What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

cruz  were  outraging  and  slaughtering 
Mexican  women  and  carrying  babies 
around  town  on  the  points  of  their 
bayonets.  This  was  all  published 
widely  in  the  Mexican  newspapers,  and 
the  people  believed  it;  just  as  they  be- 
lieved that  the  United  States  troops 
left  Veracruz  in  November,  1914,  be- 
cause they  had  been  ordered  out  by 
Carranza,  whose  manifesto,  reeking 
with  hot  "  patriotism  "  and  high  flown 
sentiment,  "  demanding  the  with- 
drawal "  of  the  American  soldiers,  had 
been  filling  the  native  newspapers  and 
the  agitators'  mouths  throughout  the 
country.  And  the  same  experience 
with  the  same  result  was  repeated  in 
1916  when  the  troops  were  withdrawn 
in  Chihuahua  State. 

And  thus  is  "  public  opinion  "  fash- 
ioned in  Mexico. 

On  the  night  of  the  day  President 
Wilson  withdrew  the  American  troops 
from  Veracruz  and  thereby  delivered 
Mexico  and  her  tortured  people  over 
to  anarchy,  I  stood  with  a  crowd  of 
natives  listening  to  Obregon  inveighing 
against  the  Americans  and  extolling  the 
Carranzista  officers  who  had  done 
little  else  since  they  had  come  to  Mex- 


The  Submerged  80  Per  Cent.      75 

ico  City  but  to  prey  upon  its  inhabi- 
tants. I  did  not  hear  him  utter  a 
single  appreciative  word  of  what 
America  had  done  for  the  constitution- 
alists;  I  never  heard  while  I  was  in 
Mexico,  one  officer,  except  Villa, 
acknowledge  that  the  United  States  had 
helped  them  to  get  rid  of  Huerta  or 
helped  them  at  all,  or  express  any 
thankfulness  for  any  of  the  very  ma- 
terial aid  the  Administration  has  given 
them  first  and  last.  During  all  the 
time  the  Carranzista  brand  of  consti- 
tutionalists was  in  Mexico  Gity  during 
1914  it  was  permissible  to  raise  the 
American  flag  only  over  the  Brazilian 
Embassy  where  United  States  official 
business  was  cared  for. 


THE  MAN  AND  THE  JOB 
DIAZ  —  MADERO 

THIS  was  the  country  steeped  in 
anarchy  and  this  the  people 
prone  to  revolt  over  whom  Diaz  became 
president  in  IS^Qj,  a  people  that  had 
been  fighting  among  themselves  for 
leadership,  with  but  a  few  years'  respite 
under  Juarez  —  another  strong  man 
—  for  fifty  years.  Both  people  and 
country  were  exhausted;  the  nation 
was  bankrupt,  industry  slept,  the  mail 
travelled  by  coach,  and  the  land 
swarmed  with  bandits. 

Diaz  sought  to  build,  to  bring  peace 
and  the  plenty  which  he  thought  Mex- 
ico capable  of  producing. 

With  the  history  of  his  country  writ 
deep  in  his  heart  and  an  understanding 
of  his  people  consistent  and  profound, 
he  knew  that  if  Mexico  was  to  be  de- 
veloped, the  skill,  the  energy,  the  money 
for  the  unfolding  of  her  natural  re- 
sources and  the  founding  and  the  shap- 
76 


The  Man  and  the  Job          77 

ing  of  her  industrial  potentialities  must 
come  from  outside ;  and  his  thought 
turned  naturally  to  a  close  commercial 
and  financial  relationship  with  his  en- 
terprising and  powerful  rich  neighbour 
to  the  north.  But  before  he  could 
hope  to  enlist  foreign  genius  and  at- 
tract foreign  capital  he  realised  that 
he  must  establish  order  in  his  disorderly 
country  and  respect  for  property 
rights  among  his  lawless  people. 

And  well  Diaz  knew  the  full  measure 
of  the  tremendous  undertaking  which 
confronted  him.  Born  1830  under  the 
treachery  which  ruined  the  patriotic 
efforts  of  Guerrero  and  brought  death 
to  that  "  Great  Commoner  of  Mexico," 
his  youth  passed  amidst  the  vivid  scenes 
of  that  distracting  period  when  until 
the  coming  of  Alvarez,  cuartelazo  fol- 
lowed fast  upon  cuartelazo,  he  came  to 
his  task  imbued  with  the  spirit  to  make 
his  country  live,  and  aware  of  the  in- 
stability of  his  people  and  their  unpre- 
paredness  for  self-government. 

To  fit  them  to  their  constitution,  to 
lift  them  to  a  comprehension  of  demo- 
cratic principles,  Diaz  believed  could  be 
accomplished  only  through  a  breath- 
ing spell  during  which  they  might  be 


78     What's  tlie  Matter  with  Mexico? 

educated  and  till  their  land;  by  the 
subordination  of  the  local  political 
leaders  to  the  national  government ;  and 
by  the  suppression  of  robbery  and  mur- 
der. "  Peace  was  necessary,  even  an 
enforced  peace,  that  the  nation  might 
have  the  time  to  think  and  work." 
And  it  was  the  work  of  a  giant ;  a  giant 
of  resolute  purpose  and  a  firm  hand. 
He  realised  that  if  he  was  to  make 
a  nation  of  his  people  Mexico  must 
learn  to  work  and  to  pay  her  debts. 
So  he  began  by  penalising  robbery  with 
death,  he  kept  his  telegraph  lines  open 
by  executing  every  foreman  who  failed 
to  apprehend  those  that  cut  the  lines 
in  his  district,  and  he  suppressed  insur- 
rection swiftly  and  mercilessly.  "  The 
blood  that  was  shed  was  bad  blood ;  the 
blood  saved  was  good  blood,"  as  he 
once  expressed  it  in  a  frank  review  of 
the  early  days  of  his  rule.  Under  this 
Draconian  code,  applied  promptly  and 
widely,  grew  order  where  had  been 
chaos,  peace  where  had  been  unceasing 
strife,  safety  where  insecurity  had 
reigned ;  and  Mexico  entered  upon  her 
first  era  of  real  tranquillity.  He 
cleared  the  border  of  its  bandits,  and 
kept  it  cleared,  for  his  experience  with 


The  Man  and  the  Job          79 

his  neighbour  had  taught  him  the 
United  States  Administration  of  that 
day  wquld  not  stand  idly  recording  the 
outrage  of  its  citizens,  and  the  desire 
for  its  help  and  the  respect  for  its  just 
might  which  had  urged  him  to  put  his 
country  in  order  impelled  him  to  keep 
it  so. 

And  then  the  Americans  came;  to 
develop  Mexico's  resources,  to  give  the 
natives  new  lessons  in  wage  scale, 
strange  experiences  in  the  human  rela- 
tions of  co-workers,  and  Mexico  her 
first  taste  of  prosperity. 

With  Diaz  began  serious  economic 
development ;  the  regulation  of  the 
taxes,  the  placing  of  the  Government 
on  a  gold  basis,  the  establishment  of  a 
banking  system  —  separating  the  banks 
of  issue  from  the  banks  of  loan  and 
promotion  —  and  an  interest  rate  of 
six  instead  of  twelve  per  cent.  To  his 
own  and  to  the  foreigners  that  came  in 
response  to  his  invitation  to  build,  to 
invest  and  to  work,  he  showed  a  liberal 
spirit,  but  in  general  to  no  greater  ex- 
tent than  has  been  the  custom  in  every 
new  country  seeking  aid  in  its  upbuild- 
ing, and  not  nearly  so  much  as  we  have 
seen  over  our  own  country  in  railroad, 


80     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

irrigation,  and  manufacturing  projects 
of  state  and  private  enterprise. 

Everywhere  public  improvement  went 
forward;  streets  were  paved,  hospitals 
and  roads  were  built,  schools  estab- 
lished, parks  laid  out.  And  hand  in 
hand  with  this  splurge  of  contract  let- 
ting and  new  building,  went  the  favour- 
itism, the  graft  which  we  see  every  day 
in  our  own  cities.  It  was  not  in  the 
work  done  by  foreigners  for  the  na- 
tional Government  where  money  was 
wasted  through  corruption,  but  in  the 
deals  between  the  Cientifico  group  and 
the  States. 

It  has  been  said  truly  that  of  the 
millions  of  pesos  which  went  into  archi- 
tectural monument,  into  sanitation, 
into  general  municipal  embellishment, 
some  might  profitably  have  been  di- 
rected towards  fitting  his  people  more 
rapidly  for  democratic  government. 
Also  it  is  fair  to  record  that  these  pesos 
were  not  squeezed  from  the  pockets  of 
the  people ;  they  were  the  first  fruits  of 
the  industrial  boom  Diaz  had  started, 
and  the  improvements  were  essential  to 
his  plan  of  placing  Mexico  among  the 
enlightened. 

As  there  had  always  been  so  during 


The  Man  and  the  Job          81 

the  rule  of  Diaz  there  was  a  prepon- 
derance of  the  well-to-do  in  the  Gov- 
ernment, because  the  wealthy  class 
contained  the  great  majority  of  the 
educated  and  because  the  first  consti- 
tution of  Mexico  proclaimed  by  More- 
los  in  1813,  abolished  personal  taxa- 
tion and  placed  the  burden  of  govern- 
ment support  on  this  class  alone. 

Under  this  provision  or  tradition 
grew  up  the  Cientificos,  a  group  at  first 
entirely  advantageous  to  the  develop- 
ment of  Mexico  but  which  became 
finally  settled  in  special  privilege  and 
for  the  last  six  or  more  years  of  the 
Diaz  regime,  dominated  official  circles 
and  distributed  government  patronage 
almost  at  will.  At  the  last  it  became 
more  powerful  than  Diaz  himself,  this 
political  ring,  no  better  and  no  worse 
than  the  rings  we  know  in  Philadelphia 
and  New  York,  which  in  his  declining 
years  enmeshed  this  shell  of  the  giant 
and,  to  the  casual  on-looker,  clouded 
the  great  work  he  had  given  his 
country. 

Whether  through  mis  judgment  or 
for  lack  of  vision,  Diaz  in  our  eyes, 
perhaps  after  all  less  discerning  in  the 
matter  than  his,  failed  in  two  vital  re- 


82      What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

spects ;  first,  in  not  putting  his  people 
on  the  land  in  small  holdings ;  and  sec- 
ond, in  not  encouraging  to  wider  ad-  | 
vance  in  democratic  and  political  train- 
ing his  growing  middle  class  —  that 
class  upon  which  rests  the  bulwark  of 
every  republic.  That  he  did  not  ex- 
tend suffrage  throughout  the  land  was 
because  he  believed  the  people  en  masse 
were  not  qualified  for  the  vote;  that 
the  elections  were  in  most  instances  pre- 
arranged was  part  and  parcel  of  mis- 
take number  two.  Yet  he  told  James 
Creelman  in  1908,  and  I  believe  truly, 
that  he  had  "  waited  patiently  for  the 
day  when  the  people  of  Mexico  were 
prepared  to  choose  and  change  their 
government  at  every  election  without 
danger  of  armed  revolution  and  with- 
out injury  to  the  national  credit  or  in- 
terference with  national  progress." 
Two  years  later  his  people  had  returned 
to  their  abandoned  habits  of  looting 
and  killing! 

Yet  whatever  mistakes  Diaz  may 
have  made,  what  he  accomplished  was  so 
big  under  odds  so  heavy  as  to  out- 
weigh the  errors  and  render  them  neg- 
ligible in  the  world's  record  of  achieve- 
ment. He  put  Mexico  on  the  civilised 


The  Man  and  the  Job          83 

map,  covered  her  land  with  telegraph 
wires  and  rails,  placed  robbery  almost 
among  the  lost  native  arts,  made  travel 
both  comfortable  and  safe,  built  up 
Mexico's  foreign  trade  from  thirty  mil- 
lion of  pesos  to  over  five  hundred  mil- 
lion, and  local  industry  from  hand 
looms  to  mills  and  foundries  and  fac- 
tories. He  found  three  thousand 
schools  in  the  whole  land,  he  built  ten 
thousand  others;  he  succeeded  to  an 
empty  treasury,  he  left  one  containing 
sixty-three  million  pesos,  when  he  re- 
signed and  quitted  the  country  on  May 
25,  1911. 

Criticism  to  the  contrary  notwith- 
standing, Porfirio  Diaz  was  a  patriotic 
and  a  gallant  figure  in  Mexican  history. 
He  sought  to  make  a  nation  of  his 
unstable,  untrained  people,  and  dis- 
rupted land.  Despite  the  handicap  of 
the  Cientificos  and  of  his  own  indiffer- 
ence to  the  bad  land  laws,  he  carried 
Mexico  to  where  it  was  just  about  to 
take  its  place  among  the  advanced  and 
enlightened  nations  of  the  world  as  he 
was  ambitious  for  it  to  be.  And  then 
Madero  came ;  a  symbol  swept  along  on 
an  emotional  wave  loosed  by  his  "  free 
land"  slogan  and  the  maddening  sight 


84      What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico?  I 

of  the  opulent,  obscuring  politicians 
ringed  around  the  President,  too  en- 
grossed to  descry  the  pit  they  were 
digging  for  themselves,  too  selfish  for 
thought  of  the  harm  they  did  their 
chief  or  the  injury  they  gave  their  fel- 
low citizens. 
.  It  wasn't  his  strength  that  won  Ma- 
mero  the  revolution ;  it  was  that  the 
(government  disclosed  its  weakness. 
When  in  an  eleventh  hour  awakening 
Diaz,  manipulated  by  Limantour,  and 
beginning  his  eighth  term  of  office,  de- 
clared in  answer  to  the  free  land  de- 
mand of  the  Madero  revolt,  for  no 
re-election,  "  effective  suffrage,"  and 
the  opening  of  public  land  for  small 
buyers,  the  people  beheld  a  government 
that  had  ruled  with  arbitrary  sway  now 
suddenly  resorting  to  conciliatory  com- 
promise; and  they  were  swift  to  with- 
draw both  their  fear  and  their  respect. 
By  its  failure  to  pull  down  the  rag-tag 
and  bob-tail  following  of  Madero,  the 
erstwhile  "  iron  hand  "  revealed  its  im- 
potence, and  the  Dictator  before  whom 
all  had  bowed  but  a  few  days  before, 
now  heard  the  howl  in  the  streets 
for  his  resignation  by  the  emboldened 
people.  The  fight  had  gone  out  of  the 


The  Man  and  the  Job          85 

Diaz  government;  the  army  proved 
straw,  the  cabinet  inept,  and  the  ring, 
conscious  of  its  guilt  and  that  its  day 
of  reckoning  had  come,  confused  and 
hysterical. 

Th£  people,  faithful  sons  of  atavism, 
were  playing  true  to  form  as  in  all  their 
previous  history  they  had  played  when 
the  wholesome  fear  of  might  was  re- 
moved ;  and  with  fear  removed  and  long 
curbed  ambitions  released,  hell  broke 
loose. 

By  certain  sympathisers  of  the  fallen 
government  Madero  was  said  to  have 
won  because  of  the  moral  support  of 
the  American  Government  and  the 
money  aid  of  large  American  interests 
— "  big  Business."  This  was  repeated 
over  and  again  to  stir  Mexicans  to  anti- 
American  feeling,  and  was  accepted  by 
them  as  it  was  also  by  the  great  ma- 
jority of  newspapers  and  magazines 
and  others  who  based  their  superficial 
knowledge  on  port  rumours  and  cafe 
gossip. 

The  revolt  with  which  Madero's: 
name  is  associated  really  was  begun  in 
Chihuahua  by  Orozco  as  a  protest 
against  a  local  jefe,  and  when  Madero 
returned  from  Texas  where  he  had  fled 


86     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

on  his  release  from  jail,  the  two  joined 
in  the  common  cause  of  revolt  against 
Diaz.  The  money  for  their  support 
came  neither  from  an  oil  company  nor 
any  other  foreign  interest.  It  was  a 
short  campaign  and  an  inexpensive  one, 
and  what  Madero  raised  on  his  prop- 
erty, Orozco  secured  through  forced 
loans,  and  the  700,000  pesos  appropri- 
ated by  Gustavo  Madero  from  the 
funds  of  a  railroad  organised  in  Mex- 
xico  and  financed  in  Paris,  comprised 
practically  the  entire  amount.  Were 
the  claim  of  such  foreign  help  a  fact, 
the  failure  of  the  Madero  government 
to  protect  these  interests  would  show 
strange  ingratitude.  In  truth  one  of 
the  early  things  he  did  after  inaugura- 
tion was  to  create  an  export  tax  on  oil. 

Madero  had  an  idea,  the  idea  shared 
by  every  reputable  citizen,  that  the 
lowly  of  his  people  ought  to  have 
greater  opportunity,  and  that  a  coun- 
try with  eighty  per  cent,  of  its  popula- 
tion uneducated  was  out  of  harmony 
with  twentieth  century  civilisation.  It 
was  a  good  if  not  a  novel  idea,  but- 
needed  experience,  knowledge,  force,  to 
produce  practical  results. 

He  had  the  ideal,  had  honesty,  had 


The  Man  and  the  Job          87 

the  wish,  but  he  entered  upon  his  most 
difficult  office  utterly  unfitted  by  train- 
ing or  temperament,  and  surrounded 
himself  with  advisers  who  were  little 
abler  than  he  to  meet  the  big  questions 
confronting  him,  and  not  always  co- 
operative. Unwise  in  his  appoint- 
ments, unversed  in  the  political  vagaries 
of  his  confreres,  harassed  by  criticism 
and  intrigue,  he  was  a  fated  and  a 
despairing  figure.  He  was  unable  to 
exact  compliance  from  his  official  fam- 
ily with  the  benevolent  plan  he  had  is- 
sued from  San  Luis  Potosi;  he  failed 
to  cure  the  ills  he  had  railed  against ; 
the  elections  in  the  States  remained 
about  as  usual,  and  "  free  land  "  de-  \ 
veloped  little  further  than  to  remain^ 
the  party  banner.  Failure  was  fore- 
ordained; the  job  was  too  big  for  him. 

Diaz  and  Madero  had  one  experience 
in  common  —  the  experience  which  Hi- 
dalgo and  Morelos  and  Guerrero  and 
Gomez  Farias  and  Comonfort  and  Te- 
jada,  and  other  less  conspicuous  figures 
in  Mexican  history  also  shared  before 
them  —  viz.  their  followers  in  the  dayl 
of  prosperity  abandoned  them  in  the* 
hour  of  adversity. 

When    the    Madero    "  idea "    flamed 


88      What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

into  a  conflagration  which  threatened 
the  Diaz  regime,  the  men  whom  it  had 
brought  to  power,  who  had  advantaged 
themselves  richly  when  the  palsied 
"  iron  hand  "  had  lost  its  weight  and 
grip,  the  men  who  owed  their  very  po- 
litical existence  to  the  Dictator  —  scut- 
tled like  rats  to  escape,  without  a 
thought  of  their  president  or  their 
country.  When  overwhelmed  by  State 
problems  beyond  his  ken,  surrounded 
by  detractors,  facing  conspirators, 
Madero  turned  for  counsel  and  support 
to  the  men  with  whom  he  had  fought, 
to  the  friends  that  had  applauded  and 
caj  oled  him  —  they  turned  theii  backs. 
The  man  who  in  1910  had  been  hailed 
as  the  "  redeemer  "  of  his  people,  who 
had  been  elected  in  1911  under  the  con- 
stitution of  the  country  by  the  "  largest 
(19,500)  popular  vote  ever  cast  for  a 
president  in  the  history  of  Mexico,'r 
could  not  in  February,  1913,  muster 
sufficient  support  from  among  all  these 
to  hold  the  leadership  of  his  army 
/against  so  contemptible  a  coxcomb  as 
|Felix  Diaz,  or  save  the  State  or  his  life 
-vfrom  so  ill-equipped  and  vicious  a  com- 
pany as  the  senors  Huerta-Mondragon- 
Hodolfo  Reyes,  in  those  foul  and  tragic 


The  Man  and  the  Job          89 

days  of  betrayal,  and  citizen  butchery 
in  February,  1913.  The  people  that 
had  wildly  acclaimed  Madero  on  his  en- 

! nance  into  Mexico  City,  had  hailed  him 
s  "  the  people's  friend,"  as  the  deliv- 
rer  from  the  "  iron  hand,"  and  de- 
glared  him  to  have  "  freed  all  Mexico 
from  espionage  and  placed  the  Mexi- 
cans on  their  honour,"  marched  cheer- 
ing through  the  streets  of  the  same  city 
when  the  announcement  came  that  Ma- 
dero had  been  arrested  by  Huerta ! 
The  press  which  Madero  had  freed, 
criticised  and  caricatured  him  with 
neither  fairness  nor  judgment.  His- 
tory had  repeated  itself. 


WHEN  THE  AMERICANS  WENT  TO 
MEXICO 

THE  suppression  of  lawlessness  in 
Mexico  was  the  signal  for  a  for- 
eign industrial  invasion.  Every  now 
and  again  a  story  of  its  mines  and 
ranches  and  farms  had  floated  out  be- 
tween revolutions  to  friends  at  home 
from  some  American  who  had  ventured 
into  the  country  after  our  Civil  War, 
but  continuous  internal  strife  kept  it  an 
unknown  land  to  capital  and  labour. 

First  among  those  to  respond  to  the 
Diaz  call,  in  1879,  for  help  to  build  up 
his  country,  were  the  railroad  men. 
England  had  been  the  pioneer  with  the 
'Veracruz-Mexico  City  line,  begun  in 
1854,  but  not  been  opened  until  twenty 
years  later  owing  to  continual  disturb- 
ance, and  in  1878  this  and  another 
short  line  to  Queretaro,  represented  all 
there  were  of  railroads  in  Mexico's 
eight  hundred  thousand  square  miles. 

Quickly     followed     the     miners,     the 

ranchers,  the  planters,  and  last,  the  ex- 
90 


When  Americans  Went  to  Mexico     91 

plorers  for  oil,  and  along  with  these 
went  the  traders  and  the  bankers  and 
a  host  of  managers,  foremen,  and  clerks. 
It  is  also  true  that  here,  as  is  the  case 
in  the  opening  of  every  new  field,  espe- 
cially railroad  and  mining  field,  there 
followed  in  the  wake  of  legitimate  busi- 
ness enterprise  and  venture,  a  class  of 
promoters,  of  commercial  renegades, 
hailing  chiefly  from  America,  that  were 
no  credit  to  either  their  country  or  the 
business  world  and  who  engaged  in 
many  varieties  of  questionable  under- 
takings and  were  responsible  for  some 
rather  shady  stories  which  came  out  of 
the  new  country.  It  was  a  small  class, 
but  an  annoying  and  a  discreditable 
one,  and  almost  the  last  of  them  were 
cleaned  out  by  consular  action  under 
President  Roosevelt. 

I  In  every  industry  these  railroaders 
and  miners  and  others  of  the  same  fine 
pioneer  type  that  had  developed  their 
own  great  West,  found  crude  methods 
of  work ;  and  everywhere  the  native  la- 
bourer living  wretchedly,  illy  paid  and 
roughly,  often  brutally  treated. 

They  replaced  the  human  ore  bucket 
with  modern  American  machinery,  the 
forked  stick  with  the  iron  ploughshare 


92      What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

and  undertook  the  industrial  education 
of  that  vast  peon  class  for  whose  ad- 
vancement or  material  care  no  native 
employer  appeared  to  have  given 
thought. 

Before  the  foreigners  came  these 
workers  received  from  the  equivalent  of 
twenty-five  cents  down  to  a  mere  allow- 
ance of  corn  for  a  day's  work,  whether 
in  the  mines  or  in  the  field,  and  had  no 
fixed  hours  of  labour ;  they  were  being 
paid  before  this  present  revolution, 
from  at  least  four  to  eight,  and  more 
times  that  much.  Now,  in  1916,  on  the 
railroads  taken  over  by  the  Carranza 
government,  labourers  have  been  put 
back  to  where  they  were  thirty  years 
(ago  and  are  receiving  four  cents  (gold) 
for  their  day's  work. 

The  men  employed  by  the  light  and 
power  companies  who  now  get  one  peso, 
or  rather  got  it  in  1912,  in  the  old  days 
received  eighteen  centavos ;  the  house 
servants  that  worked  for  from  two  to 
eight  pesos  a  month  now  receive  from 
twenty-five  to  forty-five  from  the  for- 
eigner. 

Everywhere  the  foreigner  has  raised 
the  wages  and  regulated  the  working 
hours.  And  the  Spanish  and  Mexican 


When  Americans  Went  to  Mexico      93 

ranch  and  farm  and  mine  owners  have 
been  compelled  also  to  raise  wages 
to  some  extent,  and  do  not  like  the 
change. 

A  Mexican  ranchero  was  paying  his 
men  fifty  centavos  a  day  when  an  oil 
company  next  door,  so  to  say,  opened 
for  business  and  paid  its  men  one  peso 
fifty.  The  ranchero,  Lopez  by  name, 
endeavoured  to  get  the  men  back,  not 
by  raising  their  pay  but  by  telling  them 
they  were  foreigners'  slaves,  that  the 
foreigners  were  going  to  take  their 
country  away  from  them,  and  more  of 
the  inflammatory  talk  common  to  this 
type  of  half  breed.  Soon,  after  this 
Lopez  joined  the  constitutionalist 
cause  to  "  uplift  the  eighty  per  cent." 
But  his  conduct  towards  his  men  on 
that  ranch  showed  his  real  concern  for 
their  well  being. 

Another  equally  characteristic  but 
more  pleasing  instance  is  that  of  the 
manager  of  a  Monterrey  brewery  who, 
just  at  starting,  had  a  strike  among 
his  men  for  thirty  instead  of  the  twen- 
ty-five cents  a  day  they  had  been  given 
by  the  former  owner.  In  peace  time 
these  men  receive  $1.50  and  have  since 
the  American  took  hold.  And  that  is 


94      What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

the  story  throughout  Mexico  where  the 
foreigner  has  gone  into  business. 

I  recall  two  ladies  met  in  the  Gov- 
ernor's anteroom  in  Morelia  who  com- 
plained that  "  the  English  ladies  whose 
husbands  had  come  to  make  the  sewers, 
had  paid  servants  so  much  that  she 
must  now  pay  as  much  as  twenty- 
four  reales  ($£.40)  a  month  for  a 
cook." 

The  foreigner,  having  increased  the 
worker's  wage  so  that  better  living  be- 
came a  possibility,  went  on  to  teach 
him  how,  and  surrounded  his  attempts 
with  kindly  thought  and  guidance. 

There  is  not  another  field  of  labour  in 
the  world  where  the  lowly  have  had  the 
considerate  and  intelligent  treatment  as 
is  given  in  Mexico  to  this  great  help- 
less labouring  class  by  the  English  and 
Americans.  Schools  for  their  children, 
hospitals  for  their  sick,  baths,  recrea- 
tion centres  for  their  entertainment, 
sanitary  homes  for  their  families ; 
water  and  gardens  furnished,  their 
wages  safeguarded  against  unscrupu- 
lous agents,  and  the  destroying  pulque 
habit  combated.  Such  a  paternalism  is 
scarcely  to  be  believed  unless  witnessed 
on  the  ground.  Particularly  the  em- 


When  Americans  Went  to  Mexico     95 

ployers  tried  to  get  the  men  to  save 
their  money,  to  make  use  of  higher 
wages  in  better  living,  better  food,  shel- 
ter, and  clothing  for  the  family.  The 
effort  has  never  been  easy  and  not  al- 
ways successful,  for  the  average  Mex- 
ican of  this,  class  is  prone  to  spend  the 
increase  of  money  in  extended  idleness 
rather  than  to  better  his  living  condi- 
tions, and  a  process  of  education  long 
and  arduous  has  been  a  necessary  pre- 
lude. 

At  the  Santa  Rosa  mine  near  Sal- 
tillo  the  company  built  small  houses  for 
their  men  with  a  tillable  quarter  acre 
patch  of  land  around  each  for  which 
they  pay  the  nominal  sum  of  one  peso 
a  month. 

At  Ebano,  at  a  cost  of  $10,000,  the 
Huasteca  Company  erected  a  large  and 
handsome  recreation  building  contain- 
ing a  hall  with  stage  and  piano  where 
entertainment  is  regularly  provided,  a 
well  filled  and  chosen  library  for  the 
more  advanced,  indoor  games  of  many 
kinds  and  teachers  for  those  that  wish 
to  improve  themselves. 

The  Real  del  Monte  Company,  in  or- 
der to  save  its  men  from  the  avaricious 
local  store-keepers  who  were  making  the 


96      What9 s  tlie  Matter  with  Mexico? 

most  of  the  recent  food  shortage, 
bought  corn  by  the  carload  and  sold  it 
to  the  workmen  at  cost. 

At  Tampico  the  Mexican  Petroleum 
Company  during  the  famine  period  of 
last  winter,  brought  in  beans  by  the 
carload  at  a  considerable  expense  and 
distributed  them  among  its  people. 

Pachuca  is  in  the  pulque  district  and 
the  miners  are  more  or  less  accustomed 
to  get  drunk  every  Saturday  night  and 
spend  all  their  money,  except  a  small 
portion  given  the  wife  for  the  week's 
marketing  on  Sunday  morning.  This 
amount  which  the  wife  providentially 
exacts  with  much  difficulty,  is  seldom  if 
ever  enough,  so  that  when  the  supplies 
are  exhausted  it  is  the  habit  of  the  men 
to  borrow  against  their  Saturday  pay 
check  from  the  store  and  cantinas  at  a 
ten  per  cent,  interest  fee  for  the  ad- 
vance. 

In  an  effort  to  save  him  this  need  to 
borrow  and  the  consequent  interest 
charge  as  well  as  to  help  his  family  to 
better,  easier  living,  the  Santa  Ger- 
trudis  Company  inaugurated  a  daily 
pay  day  at  considerably  increased 
bookkeeping,  so  that  every  one  who  de- 
sired might  get  one  peso  of  his  wage 


When  Americans  Went  to  Mexico      97 

every  day,  the  balance  being  held  to  the 
usual  week  end  pay  day. 

The  manager  of  the  El  Oro  Company 
found  that  the  "  collectors  " —  the  sort 
of  head  men  that  bring  in  applicants  for 
work  —  were  knocking  down  about  one- 
third  on  each  man  they  furnished,  it 
being  the  long  established  custom  to  pay 
over  to  the  collector  the  wages  of  the 
men  he  brought  in.  This  the  company 
stopped  by  paying  direct  to  the  work- 
men, who  strangely  enough  —  for  such 
the  contrary  working  of  the  Mexican 
mind  —  rebelled  at  first,  but  soon  came 
to  see  its  purpose  and  value  when  they 
got  the  entire  amount  of  their  wage. 
Any  innovation  with  the  Mexican  is  apt 
to  draw  his  disapproval;  and  if  the 
leaders  are  loud  enough  in  their  objec- 
tions even  a  riot  may  occur  over  the  in- 
auguration of  something  as  much  for 
their  own  benefit  as  in  this  case. 

I  know  another  company  in  the  Du- 
rango  district  which,  although  shut 
down  and  losing  money  every  day, 
keeps  a  physician  on  their  property  to 
watch  over  the  health  of  the  families 
of  their  former  workmen  who  were 
forced  to  join  the  army  by  pressure  of 
the  local  jefe  and  hunger,  fighting  be- 


98      What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

ing  the  only  job  left  in  most  of  Mexico. 

These  are  but  incidents  taken  here 
and  there  of  the  help  given  their  work- 
men by  the  "  foul  foreign  hand."  All 
Mexico  furnishes  similar  ones. 

Formerly  under  Spanish  and  Mex- 
ican employers  the  workmen  were 
obliged  to  patronise  the  company  ti- 
enda  de  raya  or  store,  where  the  sup- 
plies were  doled  to  them  at  exorbitant 
prices  as  part  payment,  and  frequently 
no  cash  was  given  at  all  or  seldom. 
Now  the  company  store  has  been  abol- 
ished on  all  English  and  American 
properties,  or  if,  in  remote  sections  it 
exists  as  a  convenience  to  the  men,  it  has 
no  connection  with  the  paymaster  de- 
partment and  the  men  buy  or  not  as 
they  please  the  same  as  at  any  other 
shop  —  except  that  here  they  get  more 
for  their  money. 

Particular  attention  has  always  been 
given  also  by  the  foreigners  to  the  con- 
duct of  their  foremen  towards  the  Mex- 
icans and  Indians,  especially  the  illit- 
erate ones  —  to  see  that  they  are  not 
roughly  handled  and  no  advantage 
taken  of  their  ignorance.  They  are 
naturally  suspicious  and  their  treat- 
ment by  their  own  people  was,  and  still 


When  Americans  Went  to  Mexico      99 

is,  generally  very  severe.  Pains  are  al- 
ways taken  in  arranging  their  wages 
and  their  contract  work  to  see  that  the 
men  are  satisfied  and  are  given  a  good 
return  for  their  labour.  If  there  are 
any  complaints  they  are  patiently  and 
willingly  listened  to  and  their  accounts 
carefully  gone  over  and  explained. 

When  the  American  first  went  to 
Mexico  shoes  were  unknown  among  any 
but  the  better  classes.  To-day  in 
backward  towns,  like  Leon  for  exam- 
ple, you  hardly  will  find  shoe  shops, 
Americans  not  having  operated  in  or 
around  Leon  and  the  wages  being  still 
low  and  the  standard  of  living  very 
much  as  it  always  has  been.  But 
where  the  Americans  and  English  are 
engaged  in  development  work  you  see 
shoes,  felt  hats,  overalls,  and  especially 
children's  clothing  on  sale  in  the  native 
stores.  You  never  see  children  in  what 
could  be  called  clothes  in  sections  where 
the  foreigners  have  not  been.  You 
never  saw  children  in  clothes  at  all  any- 
where before  the  foreigners  came.  You 
do  see  them  clothed  now  for  the  for- 
eigner has  paid  the  peon  enough  to  feed 
his  family  and  dress  them;  and  given 
him  the  desire  to  do  so.  Before  the 


100     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

}       »..  »*" 

foreigners  came  even  tlje  men  hardly 
were  clothed  for  their  pay*  woulfl  not 
permit  of  it.  I  recall  an  oil  painting 
hanging  in  a  club  of  Mexico  City  that 
represents  a  scene  in  the  Zocolo  (plaza) 
of  the  city  of  about  1830,  in  which 
squatting  peons  and  the  aguadores  arje~ 
shown  with  only  a  breech-clout. 

When  the  Americans  went  to  Mexico 
there  were  practically  but  two  classes 
of  people,  the  ruling  class  and  the  work- 
ing or  peon  class.  The  peon  was  the 
all-round  labourer.  In  the  saddle  and 
on  the  cattle  ranch  he  was  excellent,  but 
beyond  this  his  knowledge  extended 
only  to  a  crude  kind  of  mining  and 
farming.  When  the  mines  and  the 
railroads  and  the  other  industries  of 
the  foreigners  began  operation  there 
was,  therefore,  no  local  supply  of  help- 
ers apart  from  this  ordinary  worker; 
there  was  no  skilled  labour.  Now  there 
are  not  half  as  many  Americans  em- 
ployed in  foreign  enterprises  as  even 
so  recently  as  ten  years  ago.  As  fore- 
men, shift  bosses,  underground  or  on 
the  surfaces,  as  carpenters,  mechanics, 
engineers  afloat  or  ashore,  clerks,  they 
are  filling  the  posts  and  filling  them  well. 
The  master  mechanics  of  many  mines 


When  Americans  IVerii  TO  Kesnto     101 

are  Mexicans,,  and  all  the  companies  on 
the  rivers  prefer  the  native  crews,  from 
engineer  to  oiler,  for  their  launches. 
The  Mexican  makes  a  most  efficient 
mechanic  and  carpenter,  and  is  espe- 
cially clever  at  cabinet  work.  Thejr 
are  indeed  naturally  dexterous  and 
competent  at  anything  with  their  hands, 
as  witnessed  by  their  carving.  The 
shoe  factories  in  Mexico  now  rely  en- 
tirely on  native  men  and  women. 

The  manager  of  a  popular  and  cheap 
watch  company  told  me  that  when  they 
first  started  a  branch  factory  in  Mex- 
ico they  found  to  their  astonishment 
that'  the  initial  timing  of  watches  on 
the  assembling  of  its  parts  was  nearly 
fifty  per  cent,  better  by  both  men  and 
women  than  had  been  their  experience 
in  either  the  United  States  or  England, 
indicating  the  greater  care  of  the  Mex- 
ican and  especially  the  delicacy  of  the 
work  he  is  capable  of  with  his  hands. 

To  build,  to  educate  this  class  of  na- 
tive helpers  required  patient  and  expen- 
sive training,  for  considering  its  aver- 
age of  return,  Mexican  labour  is  not 
cheap ;  operations  can  be  carried  on 
more  cheaply  in  America.  But  to  de- 
velop helpers  out  of  the  natives  of  the 


th$  MqtUr  with  Mexico? 

country  as  well  as  to  develop  its  re- 
sources was  the  plan  of  the  American 
pioneer.  Not  that  his  impulse  was 
charitable,  but  because  the  American 
believes  in  a  square  deal  and  his  busi- 
ness habit  and  methods  make  for  ef- 
ficiency. 

There  is  no  doubt  of  the  uplift  given 
to  the  inert  labouring  class  by  Amer- 
ican and  other  foreigners  —  always  ex- 
cepting the  Spaniards,  whom,  in  fact, 
I  never  refer  to  as  "  foreigners." 
From  an  illiterate,  abject  race  of  near- 
slaves,  American  enterprise  and  fair 
treatment  have  made  them  a  people 
with  a  considerable  number  that  can  op- 
erate machinery,  self-respecting,  effi- 
cient ;  and  —  until  revolution  and  the 
I.  W.  W.  fell  upon  them  —  happy. 

The  record  of  the  American  in  Mex- 
ico is  one  for  his  country  to  be  proud 
of.  He  has  given  the  peon  a  chance ; 
he  has  helped  to  build  a  middle  class. 
Above  all  he  has  created  him  indus- 
trially; for  apart  from  increasing  the 
wages  of  the  lowest  grade  workman,  he 
has  produced  higher  grades  of  work, 
which  before  his  coming  were  unknown 
in  Mexico,  and  fitted  the  native  to  it. 

This  is  what  Bryan  calls  "  exploit- 


Wlien  Americans  Went  to  Mexico     103 

ing  "  the  native.  But  the  native  knows 
better.  And  the  proof  that  he  knows 
the  American  in  Mexico  better  than 
Brj^an  or  official  Washington,  is,  that 
you  never  find  him  working  for  his  own 
people  if  he  can  get  work  from  the 
American. 

Popular  thought  in  America,  based 
on  the  fanciful  sketches  of  Mexico 
which  have  ruled  in  magazine  and  press, 
pictures  an  El  Dorado  with  Americans 
roosting  on  the  border  like  vultures 
ready  to  swoop  upon  every  industrial 
tidbit  uncovered.  But  Mexico  was  no 
virgin  El  Dorado ;  and  Americans  paid 
full  market  value  for  what  they  got. 

Take  mines  for  instance.  The  pop- 
ular conception  is  a  treasury  which  the 
Americans  and  English  had  but  to  en- 
ter —  and  pick  up  gold.  The  fact  does 
bear  out  the  fiction.  Mexico  is  not 
the  fabulous  repository  it  is  commonly 
thought  to  be  except  in  the  matter  of 
quantity.  For  three  hundred  years 
the  Spaniards  and  the  Mexicans  took 
the  cream,  which  was  very  rich,  and 
they  were  glad,  not  to  say  relieved,  to 
sell  to  the  Americans  whom  they  urged 
to  come  in  and  work.  Americans 
brought  financial  and  scientific  assist- 


104<     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

ance  to  help  operations  which  were 
nearing  a  termination  because  the  na- 
tive holders  had  reached  the  limit  of 
their  knowledge;  and  their  advent  was 
a  life  saver  to  camps  that  had  long  lain 
idle  because  the  owners  could  not  carry 
them  farther  by  their  primitive  meth- 
ods on  the  low-grade  ores  remaining. 
In  a  word,  the  Spaniards  and  Mexicans 
had  worked  out  the  mines  they  sought 
to  dispose  of. 

The  money  and  experience  and 
knowledge  and  better  ore  treatment  the 
Americans  brought  caused  a  revival  of 
operations,  and  a  new  lease  of  mining 
life  in  Mexico.  Large  capital  and 
great  skill  were  necessary  in  such  ven- 
tures because  the  property  could  riot 
possibly  be  operated  profitably  on  a 
small  scale,  and  the, resources  finally  de- 
veloped by  such  means  would  have  been 
untouched  if  left  in  Mexican  hands. 

Investments  in  Mexican  mines  have 
not  been  so  remunerative  on  the  whole 
as  investments  in  mines  in  the  United 
States  for  the  reason  that  mines  in 
Mexico,  nine  times  out  of  ten,  are  old 
mines,  whereas  in  the  United  States 
they  are  new.  New  discoveries  or  new 
districts  in  Mexico  are  rare.  In 


When  Americans  Went  to  Mexico     105 

twenty   years   I   know   of   only   a   few. 

There  are  the  old  mines  in  Sinaloa 
from  which,  in  times  past,  the  Mexi- 
can owners  have  taken  a  large  amount 
of  money,  and  which  they  now  seek  to 
sell  at  very  high  prices.  To  work 
these  mines  would  require  a  very  great 
capital  for  the  purpose  of  sinking  new 
shafts,  providing  better  haulage  and 
ventilation  in  order  to  go  deeper  and 
so  make  them  pay  through  the  quantity 
of  ore  removed.  Guanajuato  is  an  ex- 
ample of  old  mines  practically  dead 
which  were  bought  by  Americans  and 
have  been  worked  almost  continuously 
for  ten  years  and  have  paid  little  profit. 

The  coal  mines  in  Coahuila,  a  really 
important  and  necessary  industry  for 
Mexico,  have  been  in  operation  for  the 
last  fifteen  years  on  an  inferior  coal 
which  had  to  compete  with  a  much  bet- 
ter grade  from  the  United  States ;  a 
very  large  amount  of  money  has  been 
spent  in  bettering  their  washing  plants 
and  really  very  little  profit  on  their  out- 
lay of  capital  has  been  made. 

In  a  good  many  cases  the  old  mines 
purchased  have  done  well,  mainly  be- 
cause foreigners  have  brought  better 
methods  of  operation  and  capital  to 


106     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

equip  for  deep  work  and  for  the  treat- 
ment of  the  difficult  ore  which  the  Span- 
iards and  the  Mexicans  could  not 
handle.  In  as  many  cases  or  more,  in- 
vestments in  Mexico  have  not  been  good 
and  have  been  attended  with  a  great 
deal  of  delay  before  anything  like  profit- 
able work  resulted.  If  Americans  had 
not  gone  into  Mexico,  that  country 
would  now  be  in  much  the  same  condi- 
tion as  Guatemala  and  all  the  Central 
American  republics. 

Mexico  needs  to  foster  its  mining  in- 
dustry very  carefully.  The  business 
has  reached  its  zenith  and  unless  new 
discoveries  are  made  and  opened  up, 
Mexico's  glory  as  a  great  mining  land 
will  wane.  And  new  discoveries  are 
not  too  likely ;  the  Spaniards  were  good 
prospectors  and  explored  the  country 
from  end  to  end  for  mineral. 

Some  say  the  foreigners  have  "  ex- 
ploited "  Mexico.  Well,  the  mineral, 
the  guayule,  the  oil,  were  always  there 
—  and  had  the  foreigners  not  come, 
would  have  continued  untouched  for 
probably  another  four  hundred  years. 

It  would  seem  as  if  "  developed " 
would  be  a  more  appropriate  word  to 
employ. 


When  Americans  Went  to  Mexico     107 

The  oil,  for  example,  had  always  ex- 
isted; for  ages  it  had  been  known;  the 
Aztecs  employed  it  for  the  floors  of 
their  temples,  but  the  Spaniard  found 
no  use  for  it.  And  undeveloped  that 
marvellous  reservoir  of  petroleum  re- 
mained —  while  Mexico  was  buying  pe- 
troleum outside  of  its  border  —  until 
the  genius  of  Charles  A.  Canfield  and 
Edward  L.  Doheny  unlocked  it  to  the 
world  in  the  year  1900.  But  it  took 
courage  and  experience  and  more  than 
three  million  of  dollars  before  success 
came  to  reward  the  judgment  and  per- 
severance of  these  pioneers. 

So  the  building  and  the  prosperity  of 
Mexico  went  on.  The  help  which  Diaz 
had  asked  for  had  been  given  freely,  and 
in  1910  the  foreign  trade  of  Mexico  in 
consequence  was  over  five  hundred  mil- 
lion pesos  —  starting  from  less  than 
one-tenth  of  that  figure  —  twenty 
thousand  miles  of  railroads  had  taken 
the  place  of  the  two  short  lines ;  one 
billion  of  American  and  another  half 
billion  of  English  money  had  been  in- 
vested in  the  country;  and  the  foreign- 
ers that  had  helped  in  the  building 
were,  for  the  greater  number,  still  in 
residence  the  happy  and  prospering  em- 


108     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

ployers  of  over  two  million  improved 
and  contented  natives. 

Most  of  the  manufacturing  industry, 
much  of  the  planting,  all  of  the  electric 
power  and  lighting  and  street  paving, 
all  of  the  railroads,  and  all  of  modern 
mining  were  developed  by  foreigners 
and  financed  for  the  most  part  by  for- 
eigners. All  the  notable  buildings  in 
the  country  not  left  by  the  Spaniards, 
were  designed  and  built  by  foreigners ; 
and  foreigners  pay  eighty  per  cent  ..of 
the  internal  taxes  of  Mexico. 
/  In  a  word,  Mexico's  natural  but  dor- 
mant resources  have  been  quickened 
into  life  and  dollars  by  foreign  enter- 
prise and  capital  which  have  brought 
great  riches  to  the  country  and  great 
betterment  to  its  people.  In  this  in- 
dustrial and  human  development  the 
American  has  taken  a  leading  and  an 
honourable  part.  Let  us  glance  at 
some  of  the  types  of  him  that  thus 
"  served  humanity "  practically  and 
their  own  country  as  advance  trade 
agents  in  Mexico. 

Allen  was  a  chemist  in  New  York, 
where  returning  soldiers  from  the  Mex- 
ican War  had  told  him  of  the  archaic 
drug  shops  in  Mexico  City,  and  thus 


When  Americans  Went  to  Mexico     109 

opened  his  eyes  to  a  new  and  likely  busi- 
ness field.  He  made  the  journey  by 
sailing  boat  and  stage,  and  opened  the 
first  adequate  drug  compounding  house 
in  Mexico  City  before  our  Civil  War. 
His  children  were  born  in  Mexico  and 
all  he  held  dear  were  there.  His  busi- 
ness success  brought  orders  to  Amer- 
ican wholesalers  who  passed  the  pro- 
ceeds on  to  the  American  producers  of 
drugs  and  appliances  and  medicines. 
He  extended  American  trade.  His 
work  was  and  is  of  benefit  to  Mex- 
ico. 

Bates  was  a  wet  plate  photographer. 
His  war  time  wagon  took  him  to  Mex- 
ico long  before  the  railways.  Pho- 
tography was  for  the  rich  at  that  time ; 
he  made  it  a  possibility  for  the  poor. 
His  simple  portraits  perpetuate  the 
memory  of  thousands  of  heads  of  Mex- 
ican families.  He  prospered  and 
showed  the  way  to  better  materials  and 
paraphernalia  —  from  the  United 
States.  He  extended  our  trade  in 
Latin  America,  and  the  supply  house 
he  established  still  takes  American 
goods  in  great  quantities  to  our  Latin- 
American  friends.  He  and  his  kind  by 
their  presence  and  industry  turn  orders 


110     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

away    from    Germany    to    the    United 
States. 

Childs  came  with  the  railroad.  He 
was  chainman  in  a  gang  of  the  first  sur- 
veyors. He  learned  to  know  and  to 
like  the  peon,  as  no  Mexican  can  like 
his  inferior.  He  rose  to  high  grade  on 
the  railways.  He  and  hundreds  of  his 
kind  kept  the  Mexican  railways  Amer- 
icanised, and  also  Americanised  the 
English  built  roads.  Every  year  they 
turned  millions  of  dollars  of  orders  into 
American  shops  and  foundries  and 
rolling  mills,  which  passed  the  millions 
on  to  carpenters,  upholsterers,  lumber 
jacks,  mechanics,  puddlers,  and  miners 
—  all  American.  He  and  his  kind  serve 
their  country  and  extend  their  trade. 
They  have  got  "  better  acquainted,"  as 
President  Wilson  has  advised.  They 
have  educated  the  Mexican  along  the 
railway  lines  to  do  the  work  of  Ameri- 
cans. When  they  first  came,  in  the 
1880's,  contractors  were  forced  to 
bring  with  them  timekeepers  and  all 
clerks  needed,  for  there  were  no  read- 
ing or  writing  Mexicans  for  the  work 
at  that  time.  When  these  American 
railroad  builders  came  the  last  time 
they  found  all  their  required  clerical 


When  Americans  Went  to  Mexico     111 

force  on  the  ground,  native.  They 
have  served  to  educate,  more,  they  have 
trained  the  Mexican  and  so  helped  him 
as  well  as  the  trade  of  their  own  coun- 
try. 

Dean  was  a  Colorado  prospector. 
There  are  thousands  of  Deans.  He 
heard  in  the  late  '80's  that  Mexican 
mining  laws  had  at  last  been  revised  to 
protect  owners  against  confiscation 
through  chaotic  and  capricious  taxa- 
tion. He  went  mine  hunting  and  found 
that  only  the  bonanzas  were  being 
worked  by  the  native  owners.  He  took 
a  low  grade  Spanish  rabbit-holed  hill- 
side and  brought  American  machinery 
down  the  railroad,  over  the  trails,  and, 
by  block  and  tackle,  up  and  over  the 
hills  and  through  the  canyons.  And 
he  made  the  abandoned  mine  pay. 

Other  Deans  came,  bringing  Amer- 
ican machinery  and  cables  and  tools. 
All  mines  in  the  country  saw  the  ad- 
vantage of  their  appliances,  and  to-day 
no  other  brand  is  being  used  over  all 
of  Mexico.  Dean  and  his  kind  did  it. 
Most  of  them  lost  their  money,  but  the 
trade  they  built  up  has  enriched  the 
American  producer,  and  his  workers, 
down  to  the  man  who  mined  the  iron 


112    What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

ore.  And  they  paid  the  Mexican  miner 
four  times  more  than  his  former  Mex- 
ican employer  paid  him,  and  treated 
him  a  hundred  fold  better.  Now-a- 
days  the  Mexican  miner  will  work  only 
for  an  American  or  English  employer 
if  there  is  one  in  his  district. 

Eads  was  a  lawyer.  On  a  suit  for  a 
client  who  sold  office  supplies,  he  went 
to  Mexico  City.  His  suit  dragged  piti- 
fully and  he  loafed  around  the  Mexican 
branch  of  his  client.  He  became  at- 
tracted to  the  trade  and  dropped  into 
a  chair  permanently.  He  has  sold  fur- 
niture, all  American  now,  for  twenty 
years.  His  American  made  goods 
have,  by  his  presence  and  his  personal- 
ity, been  so  strongly  pushed,  that  his 
orders  to  American  factories  have  ex- 
ceeded ten  million  dollars.  The  fac- 
tory has  paid  this  out  to  its  workers 
for  assembling  and  making ;  and  to  lum- 
bermen for  the  wood,  who  have  passed 
it  on  to  their  axmen  and  teamsters ;  to 
cloth  mills,  who  have  passed  it  on  to 
their  spinners;  and,  through  wholesal- 
ers, ginmen,  and  planters,  to  the  Amer- 
icans who  picked  the  cotton  and  sheared 
the  sheep. 

Eads  has  paid  the  price  of  success  as 


When  Americans  Went  to  Mexico     113' 

a  salesman ;  he  has  been  accused  of  hav- 
ing a  "  stand-in  " ;  but  it  is  as  certain 
as  the  rain  in  August  (Mexico)  that 
if  he  had  not  been  on  the  ground  to  pick 
up  those  ten  millions  of  dollars  orders, 
the  orders  would  have  gone  to  German 
or  French  or  English  factories,  and 
enriched  European  instead  of  American 
workmen. 

Fenn  was  a  mechanic.  The  railways 
brought  him  down.  He  set  up  a  shop 
for  working  iron  and  equipped  it  with 
American  machines.  No  other  iron 
working  machinery  is  now  used  in  Mex- 
ico ;  the  American  salesmen  on  the 
ground  see  to  that.  Take  them,  and 
Fenn,  and  his  kind  away  and  the  ma- 
chinery will  come  from  elsewhere,  and 
this  contribution  to  American  export 
and  American  workmen,  and,  through 
the  company,  the  shop,  and  the  mine, 
will  go  across  the  water.  And  Fenn 
took  the  raw  Indian,  who  has  a  strange 
machine  sense,  and  made  him  an  iron- 
master. As  a  result  the  Indian  is  fond 
of  Fenn  and  is  educating  his  children 
on  the  wages  the  Fenns  pay  him. 

Green  was  a  stockman  in  Texas.  He 
knew  that  in  the  livestock  country  of 
Mexico  milch  cows  are  scarce,  and 


What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

brought  a  carload  to  Queretero  where 
he  started  a  dairy.  Cows  are  not  bred 
in  Mexico,  and  he  began  the  business, 
since  then  extended,  of  the  importation 
of  cows.  He  and  other  Americans  have 
furnished  milk  to  the  people  free  from 
water,  and  clean.  Their  imports  of 
milch  cows  has  sent  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  dollars  to  farmers  and  ranch- 
ers in  the  West  and  Middlewest. 

Howe  was  a  farmer.  He  took  up  a 
small  ranch  near  the  Gulf  Coast.  His 
Mexican  neighbours  hired  their  help; 
he  did  his  own  work  with  American  ma- 
chinery. His  neighbours  saw  the  advan- 
tage of  the  deep  plough  over  the  fork 
of  a  tree,  and  began  to  buy  American 
agricultural  machinery.  The  example 
was  given  by  Howe ;  the  American  man- 
ufacturer and  workman  profit.  And 
the  Mexican  farmer  has  the  American 
machinery  habit,  which  he  will  hold  as 
long  as  the  example  lasts. 

Ives  drifted  to  Mexico  as  a  plumber. 
He  is  now  known  as  the  best  in  the  busi- 
ness. He  boosts  American  plumbing 
supplies  against  the  English,  French, 
and  German,  and  ^keeps  them  from  a 
clear  field  and  the  money  spent  for  these 
necessary  house  furnishings  by  having 


When  Americans  Went  to  Mexico     115 

live  salesmen  and  enthusiastic  boosters 
on  the  ground. 

Jones  was  a  contractor  who  would 
try  anything  in  the  construction  line. 
He  could  underbid  his  Mexican,  Span- 
ish, and  English  rivals  because  the  peon 
labourers  followed  him ;  and  the  labour- 
ers followed  him  because  he  treated 
them  right  and  worked  them  laughing. 
He  bought  American  shovels  and  picks 
and  showed  his  rivals  the  way  to  tool 
economy.  But  for  him  they  would 
have  continued  to  buy  their  tools  in 
England.  He  knew  something  better 
than  the  two-wheel  whole  body  dump 
cart ;  he  brought  down  American  four- 
wheel  under-dump  wagons,  and  his  com- 
petitors had  to  do  the  same,  and  the  re- 
sult was  increased  trade  for  the  Amer- 
ican manufacturers,  better  treatment 
for  Mexican  drivers  and  labourers  gen- 
erally —  not  to  speak  of  increased 
work  for  American  factories  and  wheel- 
wrights. 

Keep,  knowing  that  the  growing 
American  colony  would  buy  American 
groceries,  began  competition  with  the 
Spanish  tienda  men  on  their  own 
ground.  His  groceries  were  all  Amer- 
ican. They  were  laid  before  Mexicans 


116     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

at  American  houses.  And  the  American 
canner  has  had  an  income  from  Mexico 
to  pass  on  to  the  tinsmith,  the  fruit 
grower,  the  farmer,  and  the  fisherman 
of  the  United  States.  When  Keep  and 
his  many  American  grocer  associates 
leave  Mexico,  the  Mexican  trade  will 
go  again  to  Spain  and  France. 

Leach  was  a  California  oil  man  who 
heard  of  asphalt  exudes  in  Mexico.  He 
had  men,  and  he  had  money.  He 
bought  and  leased  his  land,  and  then 
began  the  most  heartbreaking  business 
of  them  all,  fighting  jungle,  mud,  dis- 
tance, and  time.  He  risked  every  dol- 
lar he  had  in  the  world,  but  he  pro- 
duced the  first  oil  in  Mexico  and  gave 
the  world  a  cheaper  fuel  and  Mexico  a 
new  source  of  wealth.  He  multiplied 
the  Mexican  workers'  wages  by  four, 
and  gave  them  schools  and  hospitals 
and  homes  and  comforts.  His  tools, 
machinery,  wagons,  mules,  traction-en- 
gines, pumps,  pipe,  rails,  locomotives, 
and  everything  necessary  in  a  business 
that  makes  necessary  the  building  of 
whole  towns  and  communities  at  the 
company's  expense,  came  from  his  own 
country. 

He  and  other  oil  men  that  followed 


When  Americans  Went  to  Mexico     117 

him  have  brought  into  Mexico  thou- 
sands of  miles  of  American  pipe,  and 
hundreds  of  acres  of  tank  plates.  Had 
they  not  ventured  from  home  and 
risked  their  money,  this  enormous  busi- 
ness would  have  gone  to  the  hard  com- 
peting German  or  the  well-established 
and  confident  Englishman. 

The  balance  of  the  alphabet  could  be 
filled  out  with  others  of  that  company 
of  advance  agents  who,  invited  by  Diaz, 
encouraged  by  the  treaty  which  assures 
them  and  their  property  full  guarantees 
of  protection,  went  to  Mexico  until 
their  number  swelled  to  probably  fifty 
thousand  in  1910.  There  they  risked 
life,  money;  created  industry,  raised 
their  homes,  reared  their  children,  and 
built  up  America's  trade  with  Mexico 
until  her  share  was  sixty  per  cent,  of 
the  whole;  which  means  that  American 
exports  to  Mexico  were  more  than  to 
either  China  or  the  Philippines. 

These  are  the  men  who  have  been 
doing  practical  "  uplift  "  work  in  Mex- 
ico, and  these  the  Americans,  their 
women,  and  their  children  whom  the 
Administration  abandoned  to  a  furious 
half-civilised  people  in  a  tempest  of  an- 
archy ! 


WHAT  Is  A  CONCESSION? 

AS  "  free  land  "  is  the  loudly  pro- 
claimed panacea  of  the  Mexican 
orator-revolutionist  for  all  the  ills  of 
Mexico,  so  "  big  business  "  as  the  root 
of  all  evil  in  Mexico  is  the  apparition  of 
President  Wilson,  and  of  all  the  scrib- 
bling theorists  and  professional  paci- 
fists that  have  cast  a  casual  eye  upon 
that  unhappy  and  but  little  understood 
country. 

Because  Lord  Cowdry  had  been  un- 
usually favoured  in  the  way  of  an  oil 
exploring  license  by  the  Diaz  Govern- 
ment with  a  view  to  bring  English  com- 
petitors into  the  oil  field,  and  the  Wa- 
ters Pierce  Company  and  Cowdry  later 
engaged  in  a  price  cutting  war,  it  must 
necessarily  follow,  according  to  Admin- 
istration logic,  that  one  or  the  other  or 
both  of  them  were  fomenting  revolution 
in  their  commercial  rivalry,  and  hence 
all  other  rival  investors  in  Mexico  must 
be  engaged  in  undermining  the  Govern- 
ment in  a  general  struggle  for  illegal 
advantage. 

118 


What  Is  a  Concession?        119 

Woodrow  Wilson  affects  to  believe 
and  seeks  to  make  the  people  of  the 
United  States  believe  through  his  un- 
just, polished  phrases,  that  the  business 
ventures  of  Americans  in  Mexico  are 
predatory  and  baneful ;  that  they  are 
based  on  "  concessions "  scenting  to 
high  heaven  with  fraudulent  special 
privilege  wrung  from  the  Mexican  Gov- 
ernment through  corruption  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  Mexican  people. 

Neither  the  President  nor  the  editors 
who  take  their  cue  from  his  slanderous 
fluency  appear  to  know  what  a  conces- 
sion is. 

The  word  "  concession "  has  been 
used  as  a  bait  for  speculators,  and  in 
newspaper  "  write  ups,"  by  the  smooth 
promoters,  of  whom  Mexico  has  had 
more  than  its  share,  to  imply  especial, 
personal,  and  exclusive  favour.  It  is 
not  all  or  any  one  of  these  things  in 
the  sense  inferred.  It  is  instead  merely 
a  national  license  to  do  business  with- 
out the  handicap  of  local  extortion. 

Any  and  every  government  contract 
is   a   concession.       A   contract   to   lay  ; 
sewers,  to  lay  a  pipe  line,  to  sell  mules, 
to  build  a  factory  or  a  hospital  or  a 
school,  to  buy  timber  tracts  on  the  pub- 


120     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

lie  domain,  to  explore  a  given  section 
for  mineral  or  water,  to  supply  beef 
or  coal  or  oil  to  any  public  institution, 
—  is  called  a  concession  in  Mexico.  In 
a  word,  wherever  you  wish  to  be  free 
from  petty  graft,  you  seek  a  conces- 
sion. There  once  was  a  form  of  sur- 
veying concession  where  a  block  of  land 
was  given  in  return  for  the  surveying 
and  plotting  of  certain  great  stretches, 
of  unmapped  and  literally  untravelled 
government  land, —  but  that  man  paid 
dearly  for  his  land.  George  Washing- 
ion  acquired  much  land  in  Virginia  by 
:i  similar  form  of  concession. 

There  are  no  concessions  in  Mexico 
granted  to  Americans  that  can  compare 
in  generosity  or  objectionable  features 
with  the  franchises  and  grants  our  own 
country  gave  the  railways  from  the 
Mississippi  to  the  Pacific.  In  the  sense 
of  monopolistic  privilege  or  govern- 
ment subsidy,  concessions  do  not  exist 
in  Mexico  for  Americans  or  American 
companies. 

The  most  usual  form  of  Federal 
"  concession  "  is  the  contract  for  the 
Establishment  of  New  Industries.  On 
showing  that  you  are  opening  a  new 
industry  you  can  make  a  contract  with 


What  Is  a  Concession? 

the  national  Government,  in  which  un- 
der bond  you  bind  yourself  to  the  fol- 
lowing, among  many  burdensome  obli- 
gations. 

1.  To  develop  your  project. 

2.  To  invest  in  its  development  an 
agreed  upon  minimum  of  money. 

3.  To  render  annual  reports  cover- 
ing the  innermost  history  of  the  busi- 
ness. 

4.  To  allow  any  teacher  to  bring  his 
pupils  to  such  schools  as  you  establish 
on  your  property   for   your   own  em- 
ployes at  your  own  expense. 

5.  Not    to    transfer    the    concession 
without  the  consent  of  the  Government. 

In  return  the  Government  binds  it- 
self:— 

1.  To  allow  you  to  enter  upon  the 
development  of  your  project. 

2.  To  allow  you  free  importation  of 
the  machinery   and   supplies   not   pro- 
duced in  Mexico,  for  the  establishment 
of   the  business   but   not   for   replace- 
ments, over  a  period  of  ten  years. 

3.  Not  to  levy  any  special  taxes  on 
your  enterprise  for  a  ten  year  period. 

Anybody    may    compete    with    you. 
There  is  not   the   slightest  vestige   of  ft 
monopoly.     The  concession  only  guar-4 


What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

antees  against  robbery  by  taxation. 
It  "  guarantees,"  but  it  does  not  in- 
variably protect.  I  know  of  several  le- 
gitimate foreign  enterprises  holding 
concessions  that  were  taxed  out  of  bus- 
iness by  the  connivance  of  state  and 
local  officials ;  and  the  list  is  long  of 
those  not  holding  concessions  that  have 
been  obliged  to  close  their  doors  be- 
cause of  the  constant  plucking  to  which 
they  were  submitted. 

Then  there  is  also  the  local  conces- 
sion. For  example,  the  American 
Smelting  and  Refining  Company  wants 
to  put  up  a  smelting  plant  at  either 
San  Luis  Potosi  or  Aguas  Calientes. 
In  its  desire  to  get  the  business  and  the 
increase  of  population,  and  the  free 
school  and  hospital  that  it  knows  the 
Americans  always  build  and  in  which 
particular  this  company  is  notably  gen- 
erous, Aguas  offers  an  exemption  from 
local  taxes  for,  say,  twenty  years.  And 
the  contract  is  made  and  the  concession 
granted. 

Similar  contracts  all  over  America 
are  offered  constantly  by  hustling 
towns  seeking  to  attract  industries, 
without  those  receiving  the  exemption 


What  Is  a  Concession?       123 

agreements  being  called  "  sinister  in- 
terests." 

However  it  is  entirely  true  that  all 
of  the  large  plantations,  ranches,  mines, 
oil  companies,  every  foreign  developing 
company,  have  given  money  at  differ- 
ent times  during  the  last  five  years  to 
the  assorted  brands  of  "  patriots  "  that 
come  seeking  a  "  loan " ;  given  often 
and  to  all  factions  just  as  little  as  they 
could  get  off  with.  And  they  are  still 
giving  it,  in  this  present  day  of  con- 
stitutional government,  to  the  various 
representatives  of  the  Carranza  co- 
horts who  seek  them  out  and  demand  it. 

This  is  self  protection,  not  foment- 
ing revolution.  There  is  no  choice; 
they  must  give  in  order  to  continue 
business  and  retain  their  property. 
And  even  giving  has  not  always  saved 
them;  the  loss  by  the  foreigners  from 
wanton  destruction  and  robbery  after 
such  "  protection  "  reaches  Jmhdreds  of 
thousands  of  dollars. 

It  is  also  true  that  despite  these  con- 
tracts, these  concessions,  all  foreign  in- 
terests have  been  compelled  to  pay  offi- 
cial tribute  to  whatever  group  held  the 
balance  of  national  power  in  their 

\ 


What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

immediate  neighbourhood ;  to  each  when 
there  was  disputed  authority  or  a  shift- 
ing command,  or,  as  at  present,  to  such 
Carranza  local  jefe  as  may  be  on  the 
job.  Tribute  and  graft.  Americans 
"  exploiting  Mexicans  "  ! 

There  is  no  "  big  business  "  in  Mex- 
ico as  big  business  is  understood  and 
exists  in  America,  in  the  sense  of  allied 
or  monopolistic  combinations  of  like  in- 
terests. The  biggest  smelting  interest 
comes  nearest  to  that  classification,  but 
it  has  vigorous  and  unoppressed  rivals. 
There  are  no  American  owned  indus- 
trial monopolies  in  Mexico.  The 
Standard  Oil  Co.,  to  whose  fearsome 
activities  we  see  such  frequent  refer- 
ence by  these  writing  casuists,  is  really 
a  very  small  influence  in  the  Mexican 
oil  producing  world.  There  are  indeed 
few  monopolies  as  such  of  any  owner- 
ship in  Mexico, —  a  dynamite  factory, 
a  brewery  in  Sonora,  some  pearl  fish- 
eries on  the  California  Gulf  Coast,  two 
cigarette  manufactures, —  one  or  two 
others,  the  list  is  shorter  than  can  be 
found  in  a  like  area  elsewhere  and 
not  one  of  them  is  held  by  an  Ameri- 
can. 

While   the    ownership    and   manage- 


What  Is  a  Concession?       125 

ment  of  the  mines  and  power  and  light 
and  oil  enterprises  are  held  to  the  ma- 
jor extent  by  Americans  and  English, 
Mexicans  are  on  the  directorate  of 
many  of  these  and  separately  own  com- 
panies that  are  strong  and  progressive. 
For  example,  Mexican  control  and  own- 
ership is  represented  by  somewhat  less 
than  one-third  of  the  ninety  operating 
oil  companies ;  by  eighteen  out  of  forty- 
eight  listed  industrial  companies ;  by 
four  out  of  sixteen  electric  light  and 
power  companies,  while  they  share  the 
management  with  the  French  and  Eng- 
lish of  the  eight  chartered  banks  of 
Mexico  City. 

There  has  of  course  been  struggle 
for  monopoly  in  Mexico  just  as  there 
is  and  always  has  been  in  the  United 
States,  and  along  the  same  lines ;  but  in 
no  instance  has  the  rivalry  resulted 
harmfully  to  the  labouring  class,  or 
taken  anything  from  the  Mexicans  that 
belonged  to  them.  On  the  contrary, 
there  is  no  company  in  Mexico  which 
has  made  more  intelligent  effort  and 
done  more  extensive  or  practical  work 
for  the  betterment  of  the  peon,  than  the 
American  S.  &  R.  Co.  which  in  an  effort 
to  control  the  smelting  business  has 


126     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

tried  for  long  to  buy  out  its  competi- 
tors. 

Not  only  is  the  theory  of  the  "  in- 
terests "  in  Mexico  being  fostered  and 
safeguarded  by  special  and  monopolis- 
tic privilege,  at  fault,  but  the  oft  re- 
peated statement  that  the  business  ven- 
tures of  foreigners  are  founded  on  con- 
cessions is  also  untrue.  Literally  the 
reverse  is  the  fact.  The  overwhelming 
number  of  foreign  interests  in  Mexico 
is  represented  by  small  independent  en- 
terprises —  merchants,  miners,  engi- 
neers, planters,  contractors,  manufac- 
turers —  who  have  no  concession  and 
no  connection  with  trusts  or  combines. 
There  are  "  crooks  "  and  there  is  dis- 
honest business  in  Mexico,  of  course,  as 
in  every  other  spot  on  the  globe,— 
Mexico  is  not  Utopia, —  but  these  are 
the  exceptions.  As  a  whole  a  cleaner, 
more  creditable  body  of  men  never  rep- 
resented business  America  anywhere. 
No  slander  more  venomous  or  injustice 
more  wanton  could  be  uttered  than  the 
statement  that  these  men,  who  are  in 
fact  the  best  friends  in  Mexico  of  the 
"  submerged  80  per  cent.,"  have  "  ex- 
ploited "  the  native. 


WHEN  CARRANZA  CAME  TO  TOWN 

WHEN  Carranza  entered  Mexico 
City  in  August,  1914,  after  de- 
clining to  receive  the  provisional  pres- 
ident's (Carbajal)  emissary.  General 
Lauro  Villar,  (one  of  Madero's  few  of- 
ficers to  remain  loyal),  the  Constitu- 
tionalists had  won  their  fight.  The 
purpose  for  which  they  had  gone  to 
war  —  defeat  of  Huerta,  rescue  of  the 
constitution  —  had  been  attained. 
Huerta's  elimination  had  been  effected 
through  the  landing  of  United  States 
troops  at  Veracruz,  "his  officers  had 
laid  down  their  arms,  none  opposed  the 
restoration  of  the  constitution ;  and  the 
people,  worn  and  impoverished  with 
revolutionary  ravages,  were  eager  to 
acknowledge  and  support  this  man  who 
proclaimed  himself  the  champion  of  the 
lowly,  and  an  upholder  of  constitu- 
tional government. 

In  the  name  of  that  constitution  and 
of  legality  and  for  the  "  uplift  of  the 

submerged   80   per   cent."   he   assumed 
127 


128     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

control  as  First  Chief  of  the  Constitu- 
tionalists ;  following  which  he  promptly 
decreed  a  "  pre-constitutional  "  period. 
It  became  a  government  by  manifesto. 
A  decree  of  the  First  Chief  in  charge  of 
the  Executive  Power  had  all  the  effect 
of  law.  There  was  no  other  law. 
Having  set  aside  that  historic  and 
dearly  prized  document  for  which  so 
much  blood  had  been  spilled,  he  allowed 
his  officers  to  take  what  they  pleased. 
And  the  officers  did.  No  property  was 
safe.  The  street  tramways  English 
owned  and  managed,  were  confiscated 
and  run  by  the  First  Chief  and  his 
officers.  The  railroads,  the  express 
companies,  were  seized  and  operated 
for  war  revenue.  Houses,  automobiles, 
horses,  pianos,  furniture,  ornaments, 
clothing,  were  taken  over,  used,  sold,  or 
destroyed  as  suited  the  fancy  of  the 
moment  and  the  individual.  The  sub- 
merged 80  per  cent.,  as  represented  by 
the  Carranzista  soldiery,  slept  on  the 
concrete  floors  of  the  patios  of  the  lux- 
urious houses  occupied  by  their  self-de- 
nying officers,  and  waited  on  them;  the 
others  of  the  submerged  80  per  cent, 
recognised  in  this,  their  advertised 
"  deliverance,"  only  a  new  name  for  a 


When  Carranza  Came  to  Town     129 

game  with  which  they  had  long  been 
familiar. 

It  was  a  shock  to  the  credulous;  it 
led  to  the  disagreements  which  finally 
resulted  in  the  unnecessary  break  with 
Villa, —  who  had  won  the  strategic  bat- 
tles of  the  campaign,  was  valuable,  and 
could  have  been  handled ;  and  it  plunged 
the  land  into  an  orgy  of  robbing,  kill- 
ing, and  raping,  such  as  it  had  never 
been  subjected  to. 

And  to  this  miserable  period  el  pu- 
eblo, the  lowly  for  whose  "  freedom  and 
happiness  "  it  was  inaugurated,  contin- 
ued as  usual  the  prey  of  official  thiev- 
ery and  the  victims  of  soldier  lust  who 
made  no  distinction  so  far  as  could  be 
seen  between  the  "  enemy  "  and  these 
people  of  the  land,  their  own  people, 
innocent  of  political  animus  or  active 
hostile  act. 

As  I  rode  from  Tehuacan  to  Espe- 
ranza  to  get  around  a  cut  in  the  rail- 
road line  made  by  a  band  of  ex-federals 
that  had  gone  on  the  warpath  again, 
as  the  only  resort  left  after  their  over- 
tures for  peace  had  been  rejected,  I 
stopped  to  feed  and  rest  my  horse  at 
Tlacotepec.  It  was  a  little  Indian  vil- 
lage which  lay  on  the  road  of  both  the 


130     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

federals  and  the  Carranza  troops,  and 
had  paid  heavy  toll  within  three  days. 
The  federals  had  done  little  damage, 
but  the  constitutionalists  broke  open 
houses,  helped  themselves  to  whatever 
caught  their  eye,  and,  disregarding  the 
earnest  request  of  the  villagers  that 
they  be  permitted  to  cut  and  bring  feed 
for  the  soldiers'  horses,  turned  the  ani- 
mals into  the  corn  fields  and  of  course 
caused  irremediable  damage.  One  man 
told  me  he  had  hid  his  daughter  all  day 
in  a  corn  stack  to  keep  her  out  of  sight 
of  the  soldiers  who  raped  the  women 
wherever  they  could  lay  hands  on  them. 

Another  night  and  at  another  time  in 
riding  across  the  San  Luis  Potosi  line 
into  Coahuila  I  passed  a  small  Mexican ' 
ranch  where  all  the  little  belongings  of 
the  owner's  family  had  been  burned  and 
the  daughter  carried  off. 

General  Pablo  Gonzales,  who  headed 
Carranza's  southward  move  before  the 
advance  of  Villa,  stopped  a  time  at 
Pachuca  and  while  he  issued  manifestos 
breathing  patriotism  and  love  for  his 
people,  his  soldiers  looted  the  native 
shops  and  his  officers  preyed  upon  the 
women. 

A    mother    and    her    two    daughters 


When  Carranza  Came  to  Town      131 

walking  on  the  streets  were  accosted 
by  an  officer  and  a  demand  made  for 
the  elder  daughter.  The  daughter  ob- 
jecting, the  officer  seized  her  arm  and 
when  she  and  her  mother  set  up  an 
alarm  soldiers  were  called  and  all  three 
of  the  women  taken  into  the  quartel  or 
barracks,  where  they  were  held  until 
the  next  day. 

In  the  same  town  under  the  same 
Carranza  general  a  native  walking  with 
his  wife  was  shot  down  in  cold  blood 
by  an  officer  who  had  tried  to  take  his 
wife  from  him  and  been  resisted. 

When  Obregon  entered  Guadalajara 
he  harangued  the  people  on  the  peace 
and  justice  of  the  constitutionalist 
caur.e,  hanging  over  the  school  doors 
that  motto  of  Benito  Juarez  — "  re- 
spect for  the  rights  of  others  is  peace." 
With  this  sentiment  securely  nailed  up 
and  a  discourse  on  the  devotion  of  his 
generals  to  the  interests  of  the  people, 
delivered,  said  generals  proceeded  to 
give  a  practical  exhibition  of  that  re- 
gard. They  lodged  the  troops  and  the 
horses  in  the  public  institutions,  soiling 
and  damaging  them;  confiscated  auto- 
mobiles and  horses,  broke  into  houses, 
taking  and  distributing  the  furniture 


132     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

and  clothing  among  their  followers, 
j  looted  the  shops ;  and  finally  opened  a 
store  for  the  sale  of  the  booty  thus 
gathered. 

At  Texcoco  a  constitutionalist  Colo- 
nel seeing  one  day  a  girl  on  the  street 
that  pleased  his  eye,  sent  his  orderly 
after  and  fetched  her;  for  no  father 
can  stand  in  the  way  of  the  officers' 
lust  without  paying  for  it  with  his  life, 
and  everywhere  the  poor  people  know 
it.  This  girl  was  used  by  the  officer 
for  a  few  days,  and  then  turned  over 
to  his  orderly.  In  the  same  town  an- 
other officer  saw  a  girl  on  a  balcony 
as  he  passed,  but  this  girl  had  also  seen 
the  officer  and  when  his  orderly  came 
later  there  had  been  an  exodus  from 
town  of  the  remaining  women  and  girls 
to  the  City  of  Mexico. 

The  Mexican  part  owner  of  a  mining 
property  on  the  edge  of  Hidalgo  had 
his  fifteen  year  old  daughter  taken  off 
and  violated  by  the  Constitutionalists, 
after  which  he  was  charged  with  being 
a  Zapatista  and  thrown  into  jail! 

These  are  but  typical  cases  of  what 
happened  wherever  the  "  patriots " 
roamed. 

The  beans   and   corn  and  cattle  of 


When  Carranza  Came  to  Town     133 

the  natives  were  as  little  exempt  as  their 
women.  One  of  the  choice  perquisites 
which  these  patriotic  generals  gathered 
at  the  expense  of  the  people  for  whose' 
"  betterment  we  fight "  was  through 
control  of  the  sale  of  all  cattle.  Those 
owning  cattle  were  commanded  under 
penalty  of  confiscation  to  bring  them  to 
the  general  in  their  section.  The  gen- 
eral set  his  own  price,  less  than  could 
be  got  in  the  open  market,  for  hide  and 
meat,  and  sold  to  the  army  or  elsewhere 
at  a  handsome  profit  for  himself. 
There  was  no  escape  from  this  market 
and  no  redress.  No  one  else  than  he 
was  permitted  to  either  buy  or  sell;  if 
any  attempted  it  their  stock  was  con- 
fiscated —  and  very  likely  they  lost 
other  property  also,  for  in  these  days 
when  the  army  is  the  law  of  the  land, 
to  disobey  an  unjust  or  whimsical  or- 
der is  to  become  a  man  marked,  and  fi- 
nally to  lose  everything  at  the  hands  of 
these  brave  sons  of  their  country  for 
daring  to  oppose  the  will  of  the  gen- 
eral. Such  a  one  was  welcomed  in  ev- 
ery section  because  he  "  legalised  "  dep- 
redations. 

General    Gonzales,    of    Pachuca    ill 
fame   and  who   later  was   made   Com- 


134     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

mander  of  the  Federal  District,  came 
to  be  almost  a  cattle  king.  While  he 
was  in  the  Tampico  district  he  and  his 
staff  confiscated  —  stole  —  cattle  to 
the  amount  of  full  $30,000  gold,  from 
the  foreign  companies  in  the  neighbour- 
hood. Theirs  was  often  too  a  whole- 
sale hide  industry.  At  such  times  they 
shot  the  cattle  in  the  fields,  stripped  off 
the  hides  and  left  the  carcass  on  the 
ground  to  rot.  Meanwhile  the  poor  of 
Tampico  went  without  meat ! 

In  town  the  Governors  also  had  a 
look  in  on  the  looting.  One  of  the  most 
active  in  this  game  was  Coss  of  Puebla, 
sometime  mule  driver  in  Coahuila,  who 
found  no  commercial  till  too  humble  to 
rifle,  and  brooked  no  interference  with- 
out showing  his  displeasure.  There 
was,  for  example,  a  pawnbroker  from 
whom  Coss  -had  taken  jewelry,  dia- 
monds, to  the  amount  of  100,000  pesos, 
but  who,  through  some  influence  or 
other,  got  an  order  from  the  military 
commander  directing  Coss  to  return 
the  loot.  Most  of  it  was  given  back, 
but  the  Governor  kept  on  that  pawn- 
broker's track  until  he  at  last  ruined 
him. 

On  a  night  while  I  was  in  Puebla  the 


When  Carranza  Came  to  Town     135 

local  University  officers,  and  all  the 
students  in  the  building  at  the  time,  had 
been  arrested  because  some  of  the  Gov- 
ernor's loot  scouts  in  searching  the 
vaults  of  the  cathedral  for  treasure, 
had  found  bones  —  no  doubt  the  bones 
of  some  faithful  padre  long  since  passed 
to  his  rest  and  thus  honoured  by  being 
buried  on  the  scene  of  his  life's  work. 

Robbing  the  church  "  for  the  peo- 
ple," by  the  way,  is  and  has  always  been 
the  cry  of  the  revolutionists,  but  no 
profit  of  it  has  ever  reached  the  peo- 
ple, whose  share  on  the  contrary  has 
been  loss  of  the  hospitals  and  other 
charitable  institutions  up-kept  by  the 
church. 

It  was  not  necessary  to  have  taken 
part  in  any  of  the  demonstrations  of 
any  of  the  many  factions,  to  come  un- 
der the  displeasure  of  a  constitutional 
general.  Reputable  Mexican  citizens 
like  Yanez,  Irigoyen,  and  Alcala  of  Chi- 
huahua were  killed  by  Villa  and  the 
Carranza  generals,  merely  for  belong- 
ing to  the  educated  class.  Men  who 
had  never  taken  any  share  in  the  poli- 
tics of  their  country  were  hunted  down, 
robbed,  and  murdered.  It  was  so  ev- 
erywhere. 


136     What's  the  Matter  mill  Mexico? 

The  foreigners  also  paid  their  price 
to  the  constitutionalists. 

When  Pablo  Gonzales  of  the  Carran- 
zista  forces  left  Mexico  City  at  the 
first  coming  of  the  Zapatistas,  he  re- 
treated to  Pachuca,  where  he  settled 
down  to  enjoy  himself  in  that  rich  min- 
ing town,  having  incidentally  an- 
nounced himself  as  the  one  real  presi- 
dent of  the  several  then  in  the  running. 

First,  there  was  of  course  need  of 
horses,  so  his  soldiers  confiscated  all 
they  could  find  belonging  to  local  Mex- 
ican mining  companies  and  then  set  out 
to  gather  in  some  fine  mules  and  other 
stock  belonging  to  an  American  out- 
fit. This  company  however  had  several 
native  guards  on  duty  who  warned  the 
Gonzales  thieves  to  keep  away ;  and  in 
the  fight  that  ensued  one  of  the  looters 
was  killed  as  he  rode  off  on  a  mule. 
And  the  result?  The  guard  just  es- 
caped being  shot  for  defending  his  mas- 
ter's property  and  the  American  com- 
pany was  fined  or  rather  forced  to 
pay  as  tribute  to  Gonzales  twenty-five 
thousand  pesos ! 

At  another  one  of  the  three  largest 
mining  towns  in  the  country,  the 
English  company  had  shut  down  its 


When  Carranza  Came  to  Town      137 

mill  because  it  could  not  do  business, 
and  had  but.  recently  recovered  some 
fifty  or  more  bars  of  bullion  to  which 
Carranza  had  taken  a  fancy  and  relin- 
quished with  reluctance  only  under 
pressure.  The  v company  could  get  no 
dependable  guarantee  that  its  future 
product  would  not  be  again  stolen, 
could  get  no  cars  for  shipping,  so  it 
closed  its  plant.  Nevertheless  it  con- 
tinued to  employ  a  considerable  number 
of  men  on  half  time  just  pottering 
around  on  various  odd  jobs,  solely  for 
the  purpose  of  helping  the  men.  The 
jefe  de  armas,  of  whom  every  district 
has  one,  and  who  is  the  local  boss  and 
district  military  chief,  and,  together 
with  pulque,  the  greatest  curse  of  the 
country,  began  stirring  up  trouble ;  he 
threatened  the  superintendent,  made 
demands  on  the  company,  and  finally 
incited  the  men  to  strike. 

Of  course  the  men  were  prime  for  a 
strike,  being  on  half  time  —  and  en- 
tirely unappreciative  of  the  company's 
generous  spirit  in  giving  them  work  at 
all  when  it  was  out  of  pocket  —  so 
they  sent  a  committee  to  the  Carranza 
Governor,  who  came  to  camp  and  com- 
manded the  superintendent  to  put  the 


138     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

men  on  full  time  and  start  the  mill. 
But  the  jefe  was  not  satisfied;  he  con- 
tinued to  make  himself  extremely  of- 
fensive, running  in  and  out  of  the  mill 
and  going  so  far  as  to  tell  the  superin- 
tendent that  if  he  discharged  any  man 
he  "  would  put  him  back  at  work  and 
make  it  d —  disagreeable  for  you." 

In  Oaxaca  Carranza  ordered  an 
American  owned  brewery  which  had 
closed  because  it  could  not  meet  its  ex- 
penses on  the  depreciated  money,  to 
open  and  to  keep  prices  as  formerly 
notwithstanding  to  do  so  spelled  ruin 
for  the  owner. 

At  Puebla  Governor  Coss  was  issuing 
decrees  daily.  Merchants  were  ordered 
to  sell  their  merchandise  at  the  same 
price  as  that  asked  in  1912  regardless 
of  the  intervening  losses,  and  the  drop 
in  value  of  the  peso.  Merchants  were 
shipping  through  five  different  customs 
houses  while  the  duties  levied  on  the 
same  class  of  exports  varied  from 
three-quarters  to  ten  centavos  a  kilo, 
according  to  the  grafting  habit  of  the 
Coss  under  chief  running  it. 

In  the  City  of  Mexico  the  street  rail- 
way company  fell  a  victim  to  an  in- 
spired strike.  In  the  municipal  office 


When  Carranza  Came  to  Town      139 

the  company's  .lawyer  told  the  Gov- 
ernor he  had  five  hundred  old  employees 
that  wished  to  return  to  work  and  asked 
police  protection.  "  And  I  have  one 
thousand  soldiers  to  prevent  them  re- 
turning," was  the  Governor's  pre-con- 
stitutional  reply. 

I  sat  one  night  in  the  little  Zaca- 
tecas  plaza  at  the  side  of  the  curiously 
and  ornately  decorated  old  church,  lis- 
tening to  the  sorrowful  tale  of  an 
American  miner  who  had  been  cleaned 
out  so  completely  he  was  actually  living 
with  one  of  his  peons,  eating  his  corn 
and  beans  until  the  railroad  opened 
and  he  could  go  north.  He  was  fifty 
years  of  age,  had  lived  in  Mexico 
twenty  years,  knew  the  language,  the 
country,  the  people,  and  liked  them  all. 
His  small  savings  had  been  put  into  a 
mining  claim  he  had  found  and  filed  on. 
That  was  his  "  stake,"  to  be  realised  on 
with  the  further  opening  of  the  coun- 
try. Then  came  the  revolution. 

Now  there  was  no  work  to  be  had 
and  the  enormous  increase  in  mine 
taxes  meant  that  he  must  forfeit  his 
property;  he  could  not  even  reach, 
much  less  work  his  mine.  And  so  with 
his  stake  lost  he  was  eating  the  corn 


140     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

of  his  peon,  looking  for  a  chance  to 
beat  his  way  to  the  border  —  and  what 
do  then,  a  man  of  fifty  with  the  last  half 
of  his  life  spent  in  the  country  from 
which  he  was  a  fugitive! 

An  Englishman  .who  had  his  every 
dollar  in  a  mine  and  had  been  doing 
very  well  on  his  shipments  to  the 
smelter,  told  me  he  was,  as  I  knew  to 
be  true,  selling  cigarettes  around  the 
town  in  order  to  get  enough  money  to 
pay  for  his  meals.  And  meantime  he 
had  over  twenty  thousand  dollars' 
worth  of  ore  which  had  been  made  ready 
and  could  not  be  shipped. 

The  big  power  plant  at  Necaxa  which 
had  given  employment  at  a  good  wage 
to  thousands  of  Mexicans,  had  enabled 
mines  and  industries  in  and  around 
the  city  to  operate  much  more  cheaply, 
was  closed  down  by  the  revolution  after 
an  enormous  expenditure. 

And  so  the  story  ran  over  all  stricken 
Mexico. 


UNDER  PRE-CONSTITUTIONAL 
CONDITIONS 

THE  result  of  this  patriotic  move- 
ment carried  over  two  years  is  (I 
am  writing  this  paragraph  September 
7,  1916)  devastation  of  country,  near 
cessation  of  business  enterprise,  par- 
tial famine,  distress  and  disquiet  among 
the  "  submerged  80  per  cent " ;  and 
graft,  riches,  despotism  in  the  official 
class  that  set  out  to  ease  the  lowly 
among  their  compatriots. 

Here  is  the  recent  comment  of  an 
intelligent  Mexican  on  present  condi- 
tions in  his  country: 

"  Indians  and  peons,  the  middle  and  the  upper 
classes  as  well,  are  starving,  while  the  4  pa- 
triots' —  oh,  those  noble  patriots  who  want 
nothing  but  the  democratic  welfare  and  happi- 
ness of  the  people  —  are  enriching  themselves 
rapidly;  exchanging  the  loot  for  gold  which 
they  export  and  deposit  in  American  banks  to 
insure  the  future." 

This  is  a  trifle  overdrawn,  for  the 
Mexican  can  never  paint  a  picture  with- 
out more  or  less  colour,  but  none  the 
141 


2     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

less  it  is  a  fact  that  the  members  of  the 
Carranza  official  family,  including  the 
army  officers,  are  the  only  comfortable 
folk  in  Mexico ;  and  it  is  also  a  fact 
that  constitutional  government  seems 
farther  off  than  it  did  a  little  over 
two  years  ago  when  Carranza  first  came 
into  Mexico  City. 

Whatever  there  is  of  tangible  prog- 
ress is  towards  oligarchy  rather  than 
towards  democracy.  Carranza  has 
made  himself  and  his  group  the  law  of 
the  land;  he  dictates  prices,  taxes, 
wages,  with  grave  assurance  and  nar- 
row view;  his  monetary  decrees  read 
like  the  emanations  of  a  mad  house. 
The  repudiation  by  his  Government  of 
its  own  money  for  the  payment  of  pub- 
lic dues,  the  nullification  of  existing 
notes  of  large  value  —  never  in  all  his- 
tory has  there  been  anything  to  equal 
it  in  lunacy  and  knavery.  And  his 
decree  threatening  practical  seizure  or 
foreclosure  for  those  merchants  who, 
to  escape  ruin  through  this  financial 
legerdemain,  proposed  to  close  their 
doors,  shows  no  comprehension  of  the 
national  problem  and  no  thought,  at 
least  no  sane  thought,  to  help  his 
people. 


Pre-Constitutional  Conditions      143 

Let  us  review  Carranza's  dizzy  rec- 
ord in  making  and  unmaking  the  poso. 
In  September,  1913,  he  published  a  de- 
cree authorising  himself  to  issue  an  "  in- 
terior loan  "  to  cover  the  expenses  of 
the  revolution  in  the  form  of  fiat  money. 
The  amount  announced  was  4,000,000 
pesos,  nominal,  and  was  considerably 
over  issued.  It  was  also  easily  coun- 
terfeited. The  decree  made  it  a  crime 
of  any  Mexican  or  resident  foreigner 
to  discount  or  refuse  to  take  it.  There- 
fore it  was  forced  on  the  public  for 
valuable  provender,  most  of  it  at  fifty 
cents  United  States  gold  per  peso,  as 
exchange  had  not  begun  to  fall  when  it 
was  first  issued. 

In  December,  1914,  without  notice 
Carranza  declared  this  issue  all  void. 
It  is  true  that  on  September  17,  1915, 
a  notice  did  appear  that  Monclova  bills 
presented  at  the  light  house  in  Vera- 
cruz, whence  the  prudent  "  liberator  " 
had  retired,  would  be  exchanged  for  the 
new  issues  if  offered  before  the  end  of 
the  month,  but  the  time  was  so  short 
and  communication  so  difficult,  that 
practically  none  was  able  to  take  ad- 
vantage of  this  brief  respite.  So  the 
issue  became  a  total  loss  to  the  public, 


What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

and  a  total  free  gain  to  the  Carranza 
Government. 

About  May,  1914,  another  issue, 
"  ejfcrcito "  money,  was  brought  out. 
This  was  uncertain  in  total  issue. 
Side  by  side  with  it  circulated  the 
lithographed  "  Gobierno  Provisional  " 
money,  as  well  as  paper  produced  in 
abundance  on  a  cheap  press  in  Calle 
Cinco  de  Mayo,  Veracruz.  Carran- 
za's  decree  limited  this  paper  issue  to 
250,000,000  pesos  face  value ;  lately  he 
has  admitted  there  was  an  over  issue 
and  that  750,000,000  of  such  "  money  '? 
was  put  forth,  but  there  is  little  doubt 
that  the  sum  actually  floated  on  the 
public  was  three  times  that  figure. 

This  paper  issue  was  turned  over 
with  prodigality  to  the  generals  and 
special  agents  of  Carranza,  who  used  it 
for  payment  of  troops,  and  purchase 
of  supplies.  But  a  great  use  of  it  was 
to  "  buy  "  local  foodstuffs  —  beans, 
garbanza,  etc.,  that  could  be  sold  in 
Cuba,  Spain,  and  the  United  States  for 
the  real  money  which  they  had  to  pay 
in  advance  for  ammunition. 

Parenthetically  I  will  say  here,  it  is 
well  established  that  a  considerable 
source  of  income  to  Carranza  officials 


Pre-Constitutional  Conditions       145 

has  come  from  the  fodstuffs  which 
have  been  taken,  not  bought,  from  the 
people  and  shipped  out.  While  the 
American  Red  Cross  was  taking  in 
food  to  the  half  starved  people  of  the 
northeastern  states,  this  game  was  in 
process.  Red  Cross  ships  discharging 
for  the  people,  and  Carranzista  ships 
loading  to  take  away  and  sell  what  came 
from  the  people,  were  common  at  a 
single  wharf !  And  it  is  still  going  on 
and  will  go  on  as  long  as  the  beans  hold 
out,  and  the  United  States  permits  its 
ammunition  to  go  into  a  prostrate 
country  where  the  little  the  people  have 
is  liable  to  be  taken  from  them.  The 
Red  Cross  may  be  forced  out  of  busi- 
ness, but  the  "  double  cross  "  is  always 
working  in  Mexico. 

Returning  to  Carranza's  monetary 
system :  —  a  new  "  uncounterfeitable  " 
issue  began  to  arrive  in  December,  1915. 
There  had  been  much  question  as  to  how 
it  was  to  be  put  in  circulation,  the 
problem  being  to  make  about  2,500,000 
pesos  fit  into  500,000,000  new  issue. 
Carranza  and  Cabrera,  his  Secretary  of 
Finance,  both  declared  the  existing  is- 
sue to  be  a  "  sacred  debt  of  the  revolu- 
tion," and  that  the  new  issue  would  be 


146     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

exchanged  peso  for  peso  for  the  old 
one. 

When  the  time  came,  in  the  course 
of  a  series  of  rapidly  appearing  and 
contradictory  decrees,  it  was  finally  de- 
cided not  to  exchange  the  old  money  — 
the  "  sacred  debt  " —  but  to  get  the  new 
issue  in  circulation  through  the  pay- 
ment of  officials,  etc.,  making  it  obliga- 
tory on  business  men  to  mark  all  prices 
and  pay  all  labourers  on  a  gold  basis, 
and  to  make  payments  at  five  of  the 
new  issue  for  one  Mexican  gold ;  or  ten 
to  one  American  money. 

Then  the  old  issue,  the  aforesaid 
"  sacred  debt,"  was  absolutely  voided 
with  the  exception  that  persons  were 
allowed  to  deposit  their  old  bills  with 
the  Treasury  for  a  mere  receipt  with- 
out engagement  for  reimbursement  at 
any  fixed  time. 

To  get  a  good  understanding  of  what 
this  means  in  Mexico,  let  us  suppose 
that  the  United  States  should  suddenly 
declare  all  silver  certificates  void.  Then 
all  bank  bills.  Then  all  Federal  re- 
serve notes.  Then  that  it  should  issue 
a  new  currency  guaranteed  against 
counterfeiting,  reading  only  "  United 
States  of  America  (so  many)  Dollars  " 


P re-Constitutional  Conditions      147 

without  reference  to  law  or  promise  to 
make  good.  Suppose  that  everybody 
in  the  United  States  was  morally  sure 
that  as  soon  as  this  remarkable  new 
issue  was  out  it  would  be  declared  void. 
What  chance  to  do  business  would  any 
of  us  have?  That  is  what  Carranza's 
monetary  decrees  and  the  "  bilimbique  " 
money  have  done  for  Mexican  business, 
—  bilimbique  being  the  name  given  to 
the  Constitutionalist  peso  printed  on 
paper,  to  distinguish  it  from  real 
money. 

Indeed  the  acts  of  the  Carranzistas 
suggest  a  group  of  unlearned,  inexperi- 
enced irreligious  anarchists,  come  to 
new  power.  Nearly  every  ruling  re- 
veals crass  economic  ignorance  and  ig- 
nores the  democratic  principle  by  which 
they  claim  to  be  actuated. 

On  June  11,  1916,  a  decree  was  is- 
sued by  Carranza  as  "  First  Chief  of 
the  Constitutionalist  Army  and  in 
Charge  of  the  Executive  Power  of  the 
United  States,"  nullifying  all  acts  ex- 
ecuted by  private  parties  in  which 
"  functionaries "  (including  notaries 
and  brokers)  of  the  "  Huertista  and 
the  Convencionista "  (this  was  the 
Aguas  Calientes  convention  govern- 


148     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

ment)  "usurping  administrations  and 
of  the  alleged  governments  of  Oaxaca 
and  Yucatan,  may  have  intervened  or 
participated." 

This  decree  covers  practically  every- 
thing that  affects  the  personal  status 
of  citizens  and  foreigners,  excepting 
only  the  births  and  deaths  and  those 
marriages  where  children  have  been 
born  or  where  one  of  the  parties  has 
died.  It  also  covers  judicial  procedure 
in  civil  matters,  including  estates,  and 
in  some  penal  cases,  revalidation  of 
which  may  be  had  at  the  discretion  of 
the  Government  if  asked  for  on  or  be- 
fore December  30,  1916,  and  provided 
the  stamp  tax  is  paid  over  again! 

On  the  same  date,  another  decree  was 
issued  by  the  same  "  First  Chief,"  re- 
establishing in  part  the  Circuit  and  Dis- 
trict Federal  Courts  provided  for  by 
the  law  of  December  16,  1908,  and  its 
amendments  (prior  to  February  %%, 
1913),  but  "with  the  various  modifica- 
tions originating  out  of  the  present 
circumstances  existing  in  the  coun- 
try"! 

Of  the  courts  to  be  re-established  the 
decree  specifically  excludes  the  Supreme 
Court ;  "  this  is  exacted,"  the  decree 


Pre-Constitutional  Conditions      149 

says,  "  by  the  pre-constitutionality  of 
the  Government  " !  but  the  decree  gives 
certain  powers  of  the  Supreme  Court  to 
the  "  First  Chieftainship."  The  great 
writ  of  "  Amparo  "  is  not  re-established 
because  "  the  constitutional  order  (or 
procedure)  is  in  suspense,"  and  "  in- 
dividual guarantees  are  in  suspense,"  as 
the  decree  says. 

With  90  per  cent,  of  the  mines  idle 
and  thousands  upon  thousands  of  Mexi- 
cans out  of  work  on  that  account,  Car- 
ranza  recently  decreed  a  new  mining 
tax  which  increases  the  rate  on  the 
property  thirty-seven  times  over  what 
it  had  been,  and  adds  the  new  feature 
of  a  £5  per  cent,  tax  on  the  mines'  out- 
put !  Taxes  of  mines  in  Mexico  were 
already  greater  than  anywhere  else  in 
the  world;  raising  them  still  higher  is 
quite  likely  to  suspend  operations  in 
districts  like  Guanajuato,  Zacatecas, 
and  others  which  have  been  able  only 
just  to  keep  moving.  It  is  another  in- 
stance of  Carranza's  obstinate  disre- 
gard of  consequences  to  his  own  coun- 
try. Yet  another  instance  of  the  des- 
perate effort  making  to  get  income,  is 
the  last  June  decree  taxing  banks  of 
the  first  class  from  one  to  five  thou- 


150     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

sand  pesos  a  month,  payable  in  national 
gold  or  silver. 

Never  before  has  revolution  in  Mex- 
ico brought  such  widespread  suffering 
and  hopelessness,  because  of  loot  and 
destruction  long  sustained.  Life  is  in- 
secure, property  unprotected,  there  is 
no  free  press,  no  constitution,  no  con- 
structive effort  bringing  practical  or 
helpful  results,  and  the  country  is  bank- 
rupt. 

Because  the  Americans  have  been 
forced  out  to  so  great  an  extent  by 
their  Government's  abandonment  of 
them,  there  is  little  work  and  wages  are 
low ;  and  graft  is  the  chief  reason  of 
the  low  wage. 

Take  the  Carranza  run  railways  for 
instance.  The  merchant  who  wants  to 
ship  a  carload  must  first  pay  the  su- 
perintendent of  the  road  up  to  six  thou- 
sand bilimbiques  before  he  will  be  able 
to  get  a  car.  Then  the  yard  master 
must  be  tipped  about  two  hundred  bil- 
imbiques to  move  the  car.  Then  the 
agent  of  the- merchant  must  follow  up 
the  road  —  trains  run  only  in  daylight 
these  days  —  and  watch  for  the  car  on 
sidings.  If  it  has  been  cut  out,  he  must 
pay  another  two  hundred  to  the  local 


P re-Constitutional  Conditions      151 

patriot  to  get  the  car  attached  to  an- 
other train.  And  so  he  follows  it  on 
to  its  destination.  Thus  the  merchant 
through  tips  and  graft  pays  the  rail- 
road more  than  ever  before.  He  must 
add  the  "  extras  "  to  his  prices,  but  the 
railroad  takes  in  only  the  regular  old 
rate  fixed  in  Mexican  silver  but  paid  in 
depreciated  bilimbiques.  Therefore  lit- 
tle remains  with  which  to  pay  the  train- 
men. 

The  only  district  where  work  con- 
ditions approached  normal  last  May 
was  at  Tampico,  where  the  lowest  paid 
labourer  in  the  oil  fields  received  one 
dollar  United  States,  or  forty-two  pesos 
bilimbiques.  The  railway  locomotive 
engineers  were  being  paid  eighteen  pesos 
bilimbiques ;  and  decided  to  strike. 
The  leaders  were  arrested  and  taken  to 
Monterrey,  and  it  was  announced  they 
would  be  shot.  But  Carranza  cannot 
afford  to  shoot  an  engineer ;  they  are 
scarce.  However,  the  strike  was  put 
down  by  intimidation  and  to-day  the 
government  engineer  receives  less  than 
half  what  American  companies  in  the 
oil  district  pay  their  lowest  peons. 

The  chance  to  do  business  or  earn 
wages  has  gone,  except  in  the  oil  pro- 


152     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

ducing  regions  which  continue  at  work 
because  near  the  coast,  and  depending 
on  private  pipelines  and  steamers  for 
transport,  cannot  be  killed  as  all  other 
industry  has,  through  the  government 
"  ownership "  of  railways,  and  conse- 
quent grabbing  of  all  the  profits. 

Meanwhile  the  Casa  del  Obrero  Mun- 
dial,  which  is  the  I.  W.  W.  of  Mexico, 
sends  forth  its  wage  raising  mandates 
to  the  merchants,  which  has  no  other 
result  than  to  lay  off  more  and  more 
men,  as  business  is  cut  lower  and  lower. 

It  would  be  interesting  to  trace  the 
number  and  length  of  bank  accounts 
held  in  the  American  border  towns  by 
the  patriots  across  the  line. 

Having  in  mind  the  battle  cry  of  the 
Constitutionalists,  "  free  land "  and 
"  death  to  all  big  business,"  the  study 
of  a  circular  sent  out  from  Mexico  City 
January  24,  1916,  is  most  interesting. 
This  circular,  elaborately  done,  sets 
forth,  that  "  taking  into  account  the 
great  development  all  the  sources  of 
wealth  of  the  country  will  experience, 
as  a  consequence  of  the  era  of  peace 
that  has  solidly  begun "(!)  "we  have 
formed  a  company  named:  Company 
for  the  Encouragement  of  National 


Pre-Constitutlonal  Conditions      153 

Riches,  Ltd.,  which  we  have  the  honour 
to  communicate  to  you,  asking  you  to 
take  note  of  the  signatures  at  the  bot- 
tom." 

Now  the  "  signatures  at  the  bottom  " 
include  that  of  Niceforo  Zambrano,  who 
is  Treasurer  General  of  the  Carranza 
Government,  and  Pablo  Gonzales,  who 
was  Military  Commander  of  the  Fed- 
eral District  at  the  time  of  the  incor- 
poration of  this  company,  and  with 
whose  cattle  and  other  patriotic  activi- 
ties at  Tampico  and  Pachuca  we  are 
already  familiar. 

The  interesting  feature  of  this  docu- 
ment is  the  parallel  it  offers  between 
these  patriots  and  the  ones  they  suc- 
ceeded; this  is  precisely  the  same  old 
cientifico  game  of  business-with-public 
office  that  the  present  brand  of  patriots 
came  in  to  extirpate. 

Battle  cries  of  "  revolutions "  are 
springes  to  catch  woodcock.  Porfirio 
Diaz  came  in  on  "  no  re-election,"  and 
succeeded  himself  for  twenty-six  years. 
Madero  cried  "  effective  suffrage  and 
no  re-election "  and  his  own  brother 
was  preparing  an  amendment  to  the  con- 
stitution whereby  Francisco  could  suc- 
ceed himself  for  a  full  term  "  as  he  is 


154     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

only  finishing  out  the  unfinished  term 
of  Diaz."  Felix  Diaz  shot  Mexico  City 
to  pieces  with  the  army  he  stole  from 
Madero  under  the  cry  of  "  Peace  and 
Justice."  Carranza  wiggled  his  way 
in  through  the  help  of  our  President  se- 
cured by  crying  "  constitution,"  and 
promptly  on  his  arrival  in  Mexico  City 
declared  the  Constitution'  inoperative, 
and  a  "  Pre-constitutional  period," 
which  is  the  present  status. 

President  Wilson,  who  objected  to 
Huerta  because  his  government  was 
"not  constitutional"  (see  speech  to 
Congress  August  27,  1913),  recognised 
the  frankly  non-constitutional  govern- 
ment of  Carranza. 

The  revolutionary  battle  cry  should 
really  be,  "  Quitate  tu  para  que  me 
ponga  yo  " —  You  get  out  so  I  can  get 
in. 

Scanning  the  record  then  of  this  pre- 
constitutional  governing  group  as  it 
stands  to-day,  we  find  that: 

It  has  not  restored  the  constitution. 

It  has  not  restored  the  courts. 

It  has  not  given  freedom  to  the  press. 

It  is  not  protecting  its  own  people 
or  the  foreigners  from  robbery  by  its 
own  servants. 


Pre-Constitutional  Conditions      155 

It  has  used  famine  as  a  lever  to  fill 
its  army. 

It  has  made  business  impossible  by 
issuing  bad  money  for  good  value,  de- 
claring it  void,  and  then  repeating  the 
process. 

As  for  the  land  division,  the  "  free 
land  "  slogan  of  Madero,  no  government 
policy  appears  to  have  been  decided 
upon,  and  it  is  true  that  the  time  is 
not  propitious  for  giving  men  land 
which  has  nothing  on  it  and  when  they 
have  no  work  with  which  to  earn  some- 
thing to  put  anything  on  it. 

Twenty  thousand  acres  is  more  than 
the  total  that  have  been  divided  and 
distributed,  but  the  people  are  obliged 
to  leave  the  land  to  get  something  to 
eat.  To  give  the  soldier  land  at  the 
present  time  means  that  he  will  sell  to 
the  first  officer  who  comes  along  with 
his  pocket  full  of  bilimbiques. 

The  pre-constitutionalists  are  wont 
to  liken  themselves  to  the  French  Revo- 
lutionists. Except  in  the  Mexican  ap- 
proach to  the  record  of  bestiality  set 
in  1792,  the  comparison  is  not  well  ven- 
tured. 

The  French  Revolution  saved  as  well 
as  spilled  the  very  best  of  its  blood,  and 


156     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

developed  a  group  of  leaders  of  notable 
mentality  and  extraordinary  construc- 
tive sense.  The  group  of  leaders  in 
Mexico  have  conducted  themselves  like 
ignorant  anarchists  on  an  I.  W.  W. 
debauch.  They  have  wrecked  their 
Government  and  built  none  in  its  stead ; 
they  have  torn  an  economic  fabric  to 
shreds  and  show  neither  woof  nor  web 
of  another. 

The  French  have  great  power  of  cor- 
porate organisation  ;  the  Mexicans  have 
none. 

The  French  have  cohesion ;  the  Mexi- 
cans do  not  know  the  word's  mean- 
ing. 

Patriotism  in  the  French  is  a  living 
white  fire ;  in  the  Mexicans  it  is  red  hot 
air. 

The  plan  of  the  French  Revolution 
was  definite,  and  its  work  constructive; 
in  Mexico  we  see  neither  practical  defi- 
nition nor  construction. 

Those  that  indorse  the  statements 
from  Mexico  on  their  face  value  can 
occupy  themselves  profitably  seeking 
names  in  Mexico  to  place  alongside  of 
Mirabeau,  Lafayette,  Danton,  Robes- 
pierre, St.  Just,  Carnot,  Roland  — 


Pre-Comtitutional  Conditions      157 

which  I  choose  at  random  from  that 
gruesome  yet  wonderful  period  of 
French  history. 

In  Mexico,  of  those  that  appear  to 
have  the  fortune  of  their  country  in 
the  hollow  of  their  hands,  we  see  most 
frequently  the  name  of  Luis  Cabrera. 
The  First  Chief's  right  hand  man  is  so- 
cialistic,  involved,  and  impractical ;  but 
he  has  an  alert,  clever  mind  and  as 
lobbyist  has  few  equals  in  or  out  of 
Mexico.  He  and  Carranza  are  respon- 
sible for  the  nightmare  of  bilimbiques, 
which  perhaps  may  be  charged  more  to 
ignorance  than  to  dishonesty.  The  one 
man  Carranza  had  of  financial  training, 
Felicitas  Villareal,  he  put  in  jail  for 
being  unwilling  to  sponsor  this  frenzied 
finance  policy.  Cabrera  is  a  lawyer  by 
profession  and  an  intriguer  by  nature. 
He  is  the  one  man  of  record,  however, 
to  have  sought  to  remedy  the  land  laws 
under  Madero. 

Venustiano  Carranza,  like  his  best 
man,  is  also  impractical,  and  he  is,  I  be- 
lieve, personally  honest ;  but  he  is  bump- 
tious, vain,  obstinate,  of  small  ability, 
and  with  no  control  over  his  men.  The 
best  thing  to  his  credit  is  shutting  the 


158     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

saloons  on  Sundays  and  holidays.  He 
was  a  ranchero  in  Coahuila  before  be- 
ing "  elected  "  local  judge.  He  never 
studied  in  a  law  school.  Later,  for 
many  years  he  was  a  Senator  in  the 
Senate  of  Porfirio  Diaz,  and  was  prom- 
ised the  governorship  of  Coahuila. 
Diaz  did  not  keep  his  word,  and  named 
a  de  la  Pena,  which  affronted  Carranza, 
and  he  joined  the  Madero  revolution 
when  it  broke  out.  It  is  a  mistake  to 
say  he  was  always  the  foe  of  the  Cien- 
tificos ;  he  tried  in  fact  to  get  into  the 
inner  circle. 

Both  Carranza  and  Cabrera  have 
kept  their  word  when  force  of  circum- 
stance and  the  generals  of  their  army 
permitted. 

Alvaro  Obregon,  Minister  of  War, 
was  a  small  planter  in  Sonora  and  is 
probably  the  most  stable  and  least  im- 
pressionable man  in  the  group,  being 
at  the  same  time  one  of  but  mediocre 
calibre.  He  is  by  far  the  best  general 
in  the  Carranza  army,  and  with  Villa 
and  Angeles  one  of  the  only  three  to 
reveal  any  ability  in  the  field.  He  has 
shown  himself  narrow  and  brutal  in 
dealing  with  his  poor  countrymen  — 
his  course  in  Mexico  City  being  dis- 


Pre-Constitutional  Conditions      159 

tinctly  reprehensible.  He  is  no  ad- 
mirer of  Americans. 

Candido  Aguilar,  the  Minister  of 
Foreign  Relations,  is  a  man  who  saw  his 
opportunity  —  and  "  done  it."  Apart 
from  the  ability  he  has  shown  at  gather- 
ing pesos  in  the  last  couple  of  years  he 
has  none.  He  is  ignorant  but  served 
Carranza  faithfully  and  was  rewarded 
by  the  governorship  of  the  rich  State 
of  Veracruz,  where  he  evidently  made 
the  most  of  the  occasion,  for  he  is  now 
reported  to  be  rich. 

Generals  Luis  Gutierrez  and  Fran- 
cisco Coss  are  about  of  the  same  type 
as  Aguilar  and  equally  alive  to  oppor- 
tunity. Coss  we  have  already  learned 
of  as  Governor  of  Puebla,  where  he 
made  enough  money  to  embark  in  the 
sisal  business  on  a  large  scale  at  Sal- 
tillo  with  his  friend  Luis,  who  is  a 
brother  of  Eulalio,  of  whom  we  have 
also  heard  at  Aguas  and  Mexico  City. 
Before  he  became  a  patriot  he  was  a 
labourer  in  the  maguey  fields;  now  he 
has  enough  money  to  have  put,  it  is 
said,  one  million  pesos  into  business. 

Of  General  Pablo  Gonzales  we  have 
also  already  heard  much,  and  enough 
for  our  purpose. 


160     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

Palavicini,  "  Minister  of  Education 
and  Fine  Arts,"  is  a  disciple  of  "  Dr." 
Atl. 

"Dr."  Atl,  whom  David  Starr  Jor- 
dan sponsored  for  Americans,  is  an  en- 
thusiastic anarchist  and  the  editor  of  a 
vicious  anti-everything  paper  called  the 
Accion  Mundial.  His  first  service  to 
the  "  cause "  was  as  confidential  ad- 
viser to  Zapata,  to  whom  he  gave  his 
socialistic  strain ;  then  he  deserted  to 
Carranza  when  Zapata's  race  appeared 
to  him  about  run.  Obregon  used  him 
as  an  instrument  in  his  "  castigation  " 
of  Mexico  City  in  February,  1915,  and 
for  the  organisation  of  the  Casa  del 
Obrero,  the  I.  W.  W.  helpmate  of  the 
faithful. 


THE  MEDITATIONS  OF  A  THEORIST 

IN  March,  1913,  the  way  was  clear 
for  a  settlement  of  our  troubles  in 
Mexico.  Retiring  Secretary  of  State 
Knox  had  informed  Huerta,  just  as 
Secretary  Evarts  had  told  Diaz  thirty- 
seven  years  earlier,  that  recognition  by 
the  United  States  Government  depended 
upon  his  putting  his  country  in  order ; 
the  adjustment  of  pending  claims,  in- 
demnities for  the  murder  and  destruc- 
tion of  American  life  and  property, 
and  guarantees  against  repetition. 

And  now  a  man  had  been  elected 
President  on  a  platform  which  not  only 
indorsed  the  traditional  American  pol- 
icy of  Jefferson,  Adams,  Monroe  —  and 
of  every  national  party  since  1860  — 
but  emphasised  it  by  the  following 
plank : 

"The  constitutional  rights  of  American  citi- 
zens should  protect  them  on  our  borders  and  go 
with  them  throughout  the  world,  and  every 
American  citizen  residing  or  having  property 
in  any  foreign  country  is  entitled  to  and  must 
161 


«- 

What's  the  Mattefmth  Mexico? 
4L 

be  given  the  full  protection  bf  the  United 
States  Government,  both  for  himself  and  for  his 
property." 

The  peace  of  Mexico,  the  safety  of 
Americans  in  Mexico  were  in  the  hands 
of  the  new  Democratic  President,  Wood- 
row  Wilson. 

Facing  this  great  responsibility,  with 
the  murder  and  the  destruction  un- 
checked, he  announced  a  policy  of  pa- 
tience and  hope. 

On  August  4th,  however,  the  Presi- 
dent forsook  "  watchful  waiting  "  for 
active  interference  by  a  demand  on  Hu- 
erta  for  his  retirement,  made  through 
John  Lind,  whom  he  sent  as  his  per- 
sonal agent  on  this  delicate  mission  to 
Mexico,  knowing  neither  the  people 
nor  their  language.  And  while  Lind 
was  on  the  road  with  his  unusual  pro- 
posal and  after  Huerta  had  been  five 
months  President  of  Mexico  President 
Wilson  sent  the  following  message  to 
Congress : 

"  I  deem  it  my  duty  to  exercise  the  authority 
conferred  upon  me  by  the  law  of  March  14, 
1912,  to  see  to  it  that  neither  side  to  the  struggle 
now  going  on  in  Mexico  receive  any  assistance 
from  this  side  the  border  ...  by  forbidding 
the  exportation  of  arms  or  munitions  of  war 
of  any  kind  from  the  United  States  to  any  part 


The  Meditations  of  a  Theorist      163 

of  the  Republic  of  Mexico.  We  cannot  in  the 
circumstances  be  the  partisans  of  either  party 
to  the  contest  that  now  distracts  Mexico  or  con- 
stitute ourselves  the  virtual  umpire  between 
them." 

That  was  sound  American  doctrine 
and  had  been  expressed  by  Presidents 
Monroe  and  Cleveland,  by  Jefferson, 
Webster,  Hay,  Root,  and  the  Hague 
Conference  of  1907. 

The  entire  text  of  the  arbitrary  de- 
mand which  Lind  conveyed,  having  been 
given  to  the  press  in  Washington  dur- 
ing its  consideration  by  Huerta,  the  lat- 
ter became  obdurate  in  the  face  of  co- 
ercion thus  made  public.  Whereupon 
Lind  made  the  extraordinary  offer  to 
Gamboa,  Huerta's  Foreign  Secretary, 
to  procure  money  for  the  pressing 
needs  of  the  Mexican  Government,  if 
he  and  his  Cabinet  associates  would  ac- 
cede to  Huerta's  elimination  1 

Gamboa's  official  reply  to  this  bribe 
was :  "  No  loan  from  American  bank- 
ers could  be  large  enough  to  induce  the 
Mexican  Government  to  renounce  the 
sovereign  rights  of  the  nation  and  to 
permit  its  dignity  to  be  lessened." 

Upon  which  the  press  of  all  Mexico 
howled  with  derisive  glee  at  the  purity 
of  the  American  Government  and  the 


164     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

statesmanship  of  its  representatives. 
And  a  humorous  weekly  was  started 
in  Mexico  City,  called  Mister  Lind; 
"  Mister  "  being  the  Mexican  form  of 
address  when  they  wish  to  show  con- 
tempt for  one  of  their  own  people. 
Nothing  having  resulted,  Lind  went 
home  after  waiting  anxiously  and  cour- 
ageously out  of  arms'  reach  at  Vera- 
cruz, for  the  word  which  never  came. 

But  Americans  in  Mexico  experienced 
results  from  the  Lind  mission.  Menace 
to  their  lives  and  depredations  upon 
their  property  increased  alarmingly ;  to 
such  an  extent  that  Secretary  Bryan 
instructed  the  Consul  General  in  Mex- 
ico to  notify  all  officials,  military  or 
civil,  exercising  authority,  that  they 
would  "  be  held  strictly  accountable  for 
any  harm  done  to  Americans,  or  for 
injury  to  their  property." 

Despite  this  warning,  however,  out- 
rages continued,  and  the  United  States 
taking  no  step  to  follow  up  its  recent 
"  warning "  or  to  enforce  compliance 
with  the  notice  its  President  had  served 
upon  Mexico,  they  increased.  Instead 
of  calling  upon  Huerta  to  safeguard 
Americans,  as  the  treaty  between  the 
two  countries  required  him  to  do,  Presi- 


The  Meditations  of  a  Theorist      165 

dent  Wilson  called  upon  his  citizens  to 
leave  the  country.  Thus  making  it 
clear  to  the  Mexican  mind  that  insist- 
ence on  the  protection  of  its  nation- 
als, on  which  all  treaties  are  based,  had 
been  discarded  by  the  American  Gov- 
ernment for  "  diplomatic  welfare 
work." 

On  October  27,  1913,  in  his  Mobile 
speech,  President  Wilson  supplemented 
his  request  to  Congress  for  a  "  free 
hand  in  Mexico  "  by  declaring  "  human 
rights,  national  integrity  and  oppor- 
tunity as  against  material  interests  is 
the  issue  which  we  now  have  to  face." 
And  on  the  next  day,  Mr.  Bryan  paused 
long  enough  on  his  lecture  tour  to  an- 
nounce through  the  press  that  "  Eng- 
land, France  and  Germany  had  agreed 
to  take  no  action  (as  to  Mexico)  until 
the  United  States  had  announced  its 
policy." 

Thus  America  became  Mexico's  spon-  / 
sor  before  the  world. 

Two  months  later,  through  his  mes- 
sage to  Congress,  came  announcement 
of  another  change  in  the  President's 
policy  since  his  last  official  communica- 
tion to  Congress  about  three  months 
before.  Then  he  had  said  we  must  not 


166     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

interfere,  now  he  declared  Huerta  must 

go- 
On  February  3,  1914,  he  added  deed 
to  word  by  raising  the  embargo  on 
arms  and  ammunition  which  Taft  had 
wisely  placed  in  March,  1912,  as  the 
most  effective  deterrent  to  extended 
revolution  and  slaughter,  and  which 
Wilson  on  August  27,  1913,  had  said, 
"  I  deem  it  my  duty  "  to  continue  and 
enforce.  And  in  April,  1914,  the  Presi- 
dent pursued  his  policy  of  interference 
to  the  limit  of  an  armed  attack  and  a 
landing  upon  Veracruz. 

To  exact  from  Huerta  a  delayed  sa- 
lute of  the  American  flag  and  to  pre- 
vent the  landing  of  a  shipload  of  arms 
for  him,  was  the  public  avowal  of  the 
President  at  the  time.  The  cargo  of 
arms  was  landed  and  reached  Huerta, 
the  flag  was  not  saluted,  and  on  July 
16,  1916,  Franklin  K.  Lane,  the  Presi- 
dent's intimate  and  Secretary  of  the 
Interior,  openly  confessed  in  the  New 
York  World  that  the  Administration 
had  abandoned  the  long  established 
American  principle  of  non-interference, 
declaring  "  we  didn't  go  to  Veracruz 
to  force  Huerta  to  salute  the  flag.  We 
did  go  there  to  show  Mexico  that  we 


The  Meditations  of  a  Theorist      167 

were  in  earnest  in  our  demand  that  Hu- 
erta  must  go." 

With  our  troops  at  Veracruz  for 
this  purpose,  and  rival  political  fac- 
tions fighting  all  over  Mexico,  the  Presi- 
dent said  through  S.  G.  Blythe  in  the 
Saturday  Evening  Post,  May  £3,  1914, 
"  all  the  unrest  in  that  country  .  .  . 
was  a  fight  for  the  land  —  just  that 
and  nothing  more." 

Now  followed  the  A.  B.  C.  confer- 
ence with  its  to  be  expected  disregard 
by  Carranza  and  its  thorough  discred- 
itable contravention  of  promise  by 
Bryan. 

Bryan  had  promised  the  mediators 
and  the  Huerta  delegates,  that  during 
the  Conference  he  would  absolutely  em- 
bargo all  shipments  of  arms  to  the 
Constitutionalists.  Five  days  later  the 
Ant  ilia  sailed  direct  from  New  York 
to  Tampico  with  3,000,000  rounds  of 
cartridges.  Six  other  shipments  fol- 
lowed in  three  different  boats.  These 
boats  however  were,  on  the  advice  of 
John  Lind  (as  shown  by  carbon  copies 
of  letters  found  in  the  office  of  Shirby 
Hopkins,  a  Carranza  lawyer,  at  Wash- 
ington, and  not  denied  by  Lind)  de- 
spatched to  Havana,  putting  in  to 


168     What's  tlie  Matter  with  Mexico? 

Tampico  from  "  stress  of  weather," 
and  were  reported  to  the  State  Depart- 
ment by  its  Consul! 

As  a  result  of  the  landing  at  Vera- 
cruz and  the  failure  of  the  A.  B.  C. 
Conference  to  reach  any  tangible  con- 
clusion, Huerta  finally  did  "  go  " ;  and 
the  contending  parties  which  had  been 
three  increased  to  half  a  dozen. 

Meanwhile,  Americans  in  Mexico 
viewed  the  unsupported  demands,  the 
empty  threats,  the  landing  at  Vera- 
cruz, with  dismay.  They  had  not 
wished  intervention,  except  in  so  far 
as  it  appeared  to  be  the  only  way  out 
of  the  mess ;  they  had  wanted  only  pro- 
tection and  Mexico  made  to  realise  that 
she  must  respect  her  treaty  obligations. 
Their  lives  had  been  endangered  by  their 
Government's  unwarranted  interference 
with  Mexico's  internal  affairs,  and  such 
protection  as  they  had  received  at  the 
time  of  the  unheralded  Veracruz  landing 
was  given  by  English  and  German  naval 
officers,  when  with  Tampico  full  of  refu- 
gees Secretary  of  Navy  Daniels  with 
characteristic  efficiency  had  ordered  the 
United  States  cruisers  to  sea  seven 
miles  from  the  harbour,  where  they  had 
been  lying  for  months  against  just  such 


The  Meditations  of  a  Theorist      169 

an  emergency.  A  town  full  of  Ameri- 
cans in  danger,  and  their  gunboats 
sent  out  of  reach  to  sea ! 

With  this  culminating  evidence  of  the 
Government's  lack  of  regard  for  its  cit- 
izens, it  became  an  open  season  in  Mex- 
ico on  Americans  and  their  property. 
They  were  arrested  on  trivial  charges, 
forced  to  give  money;  murdered;  their 
property  everywhere  at  the  mercy  of 
the  looting  soldiery,  which  knew  by  this 
time  it  had  no  need  to  fear  government 
displeasure,  either  its  own  or  that  across 
the  border. 

There  was  no  safety  for  Americans 
in  Mexico  and  no  justice  for  them  at 
Washington.  The  only  men  that  could 
reach  the  President's  ear  or  that  of 
his  yodelling  Secretary,  were  the  revolu- 
tionary agents.  Clean  handed  Ameri- 
cans of  long  established  business  integ- 
rity and  unquestioned  patriotism  were 
neither  heard  nor  even  received  with 
courtesy.  The  President  had  "  service 
for  humanity  "  but  none  for  Americans  ; 
in  his  burning  desire  to  effect  a  "  spir- 
itual union  "  with  the  Mexicans  he  had 
abandoned  twenty  thousand  of  his  own 
people  and  departed  from  the  long 
maintained  American  principle  against 


170     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

meddling  with  the  domestic  affairs  of  a 
neighbour. 

The  Monroe  Doctrine  does  not  pre- 
scribe the  right  to  dictate  the  form  of 
government  in  Latin  America,  only  that 
it  shall  be  free  of  Old  World  domina- 
tion. But  even  earlier  the  principle  of 
non-interference  was  the  ruling  one. 

Secretary  of  State  Jefferson  in  1793 
wrote :  "  We  surely  -  cannot  deny  to 
any  nation  that  right  whereon  our  own 
Government  is  founded  —  that  every 
one  may  govern  itself  according  to 
whatever  form  it  pleases,  and  change 
these  forms  at  its  own  will  and  that  it 
may  transact  its  business  with  foreign 
nations  through  whatever  organ  it 
thinks  proper,  whether  king,  conven- 
tion, assembly,  committee,  president  or 
anything  else  it  may  choose." 

Mr.  Webster  in  1852  repeated  the 
same  fundamental  principle :  "  From 
President  Washington's  time  down  to 
the  present  day  it  has  been  a  principle 
always  acknowledged  by  the  United 
States,  that  every  nation  possesses  a 
right  to  govern  itself  according  to  its 
own  will,  to  change  institutions  at  dis- 
cretion and  to  transact  its  business 


The  Meditations  of  a  Theorist      171 

through  whatever  agents  it  may  think 
proper  to  employ." 

Secretary  of  State  Hay  in  1899  in- 
structed our  Venezuelan  Minister  to 
recognise  Castro  "  if  the  provisional 
government  is  effectively  administering 
government  of  nation  and  in  a  position 
to  fulfil  international  obligations.'-' 

The  United  States  Senate  in  1907  in 
ratifying  the  arbitration  convention  of 
the  Hague  Conference  resolved  that: 
"  Nothing  contained  in  this  convention 
shall  be  so  construed  as  to  require  the 
United  States  of  America  to  depart 
from  its  traditional  policy  of  not  in- 
truding upon,  interfering  with  or  en- 
tangling itself  in  the  political  questions 
of  policy  or  internal  administration  of 
any  foreign  state." 

Therefore  when  President  Wilson  set 
out  upon  his  campaign  to  drive  Huerta 
out  of  Mexico  he  was  going  against 
both  American  principle  and  prece- 
dence ;  he  was  an  offender  against  the 
law  America  has  contributed  to  the  in- 
ternational code.  And  in  the  abandon- 
ment of  his  nationals  in  a  country  in 
anarchy  he  made  a  departure  which  was 
so  novel  and  so  discreditable  to  a  great 


172      What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

nation  that  it  will  live  long  as  a  black 
page  in  the  history  of  the  American 
people. 

William  M.  Evarts,  our  one  time 
great  Secretary  of  State,  said :  "  The 
first  duty  of  a  government  is  to  protect 
life  and  property.  This  is  a  para- 
mount obligation.  For  this  govern- 
ments are  instituted  and  governments 
neglecting  or  failing  to  perform  it  be- 
come worse  than  useless." 

And  John  Fiske,  the  distinguished 
political  economist,  says :  "  A  govern- 
ment touches  the  lowest  point  of  ig- 
nominy when  it  confesses  its  inability  to 
protect  the  lives  and  property  of  its 
citizens." 

But  Woodrow  Wilson  said  in  his 
Shadow  Lawn  speech  accepting  renom- 
ination  by  the  Democratic  party  early 
in  September :  "  Many  serious  wrongs 
against  the  property,  many  irreparable 
wrongs  against  the  persons  of  Ameri- 
cans have  been  committed  within  the 
territory  of  Mexico  herself.  .  .  .  We 
could  not  act  directly  in  that  matter 
ourselves." 

So  the  1912  plank  in  the  Democratic 
platform,  and  the  "  strictly  account- 
able "  telegram  of  1913,  and  the  June, 


The  Meditations  of  a  Theorist       173 

1916,  "  America  first "  talk,—  were  all 
"  scraps  of  paper."  Protecting  its  own 
citizens  has  been  the  first  care  of  all 
nations.  We,  on  the  other  hand,  have 
introduced  the  new  policy  of  abandon- 
ing our  own  citizens  in  a  publicly  pro- 
claimed attempt  to  serve  aliens  in  their 
own  country. 

In  1915,  with  the  country  in  a  riot 
of  anarchy,  the  President,  who  had 
been  favouring  Villa  in  his  opposition 
to  Carranza,  changed  again,  and  tak- 
ing chances  on  the  Carr^inza  side,  fi- 
nally in  October,  1915,  recognised 
him,  while  investigation  was  pend- 
ing of  an  atrocious  murder  —  commit- 
ted ten  days  before  —  of  an  American 
by  a  Constitutionalist  soldier  who  had 
cut  off  and  displayed  his  head  on  a 
pole  for  public  gaze ! 

Recognised  by  this  great  Govern- 
ment without  his  giving  guarantee  for 
the  protection  of  American  life  or  prop- 
erty in  Mexico ! 

Then  in  1916  came  the  border 
troubles,  the  raids  quickly  following 
the  President's  stubborn  disregard  of 
previous  recorded  experience  and  the 
advice  of  men  who  knew  the  border 
and  Mexicans  and  adjured  him  not  to 


174     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

permit  Obrcgon's  troops  to  pass 
through  American  territory  in  pursuit 
of  Villa.  Santa  Isabel,  Columbia, 
Glenn  Springs,  Parral,  Carrizal  —  one 
after  the  other,  from  January  to  June, 
bringing  loss  of  life  and  further  hu- 
miliation and  insolent  notes  and  un- 
friendly acts  from  Carranza. 

Here  again  the  President  was  not 
without  established  precedent  to  guide 
him.  In  1876,  when  Diaz  came  into 
power,  Mexico  was  in  a  turbulent  state 
and  the  border  alive  with  bandits.  The 
Mexican  had  the  same  temper  and  habit 
then  as  now,  there  was  the  same  brand 
of  patriots,  the  same  subterfuges ;  but 
the  Administration  of  1876  saw  its  duty 
more  clearly  than  that  of  1913. 

President  Hayes  declined  to  recog- 
nise Diaz  until  he  had  put  his  country 
in  order,  and  Secretary  Evarts  made 
Diaz  understand  that  no  injury  to 
American  life  or  property  would  be  tol- 
erated. When  injury  came,  as  at  first 
it  did,  reparation  was  demanded  —  and 
exacted.  Diaz  realised  he  had  to  put 
his  country  in  order  to  secure  recogni- 
tion and  keep  it  in  order  to  escape  the 
just  might  of  the  United  States.  And 
the  border  troubles  ceased. 


The  Meditations  of  a  Theorist      175 

In  1914  President  Wilson  declared 
we  had  gone  into  Mexico  to  "  serve 
humanity,"  but  on  January  8,  1915,  in 
his  speech  at  Indianapolis  he  had  "  an- 
other emotion  of  sympathy "  which 
bade  him  say  that  he  was  "  for  the  80 
per  cent."  and  that  they  had  the  "  right 
to  spill  as  much  blood  as  they  pleased." 
We  have  already  seen  what  that  poor 
80  per  cent,  is  getting. 

After  using  the  army  and  navy  of 
the  United  States  in  April,  1914,  to 
make  Mexico  understand  that  "  Huerta 
must  go,"  President  Wilson  at  the  Press 
Club  dinner  last  June,  1916,  asked,  "  do 
you  think  that  it  is  our  duty  to  carry 
self-defence  to  the  point  of  dictation 
in  the  affairs  of  another  people?  " 

And  with  the  long  record  of  looted 
and  murdered  Americans  in  Mexico  un- 
avenged, the  repeated  and  humiliating 
disregard  of  his  demands,  ultimatums 
and  messages,  the  President  before  a 
gathering  of  advertising  men  in  the 
same  month  (June,  1916)  delivered 
himself  of  this  fine  and  stirring  senti- 
ment: 

"  I  believe  America,  the  country  which  we  put 
first  in  our  thoughts,  should  be  ready  in  every 
point  of  policy  and  of  action  to  vindicate  at 


176     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

whatever  cost  the  principles  of  liberty,  of  jus- 
tice, and  of  humanity  to  which  we  have  been 
devoted  from  the  first." 

With  the  principles  of  liberty,  jus- 
tice, and  humanity  being  outraged  by 
torpedos  on  the  high  seas,  by  bullets 
in  Mexico,  by  assault  upon  our  very 
territory,  the  President  told  the  world 
we  are  "  too  proud  to  fight." 

At  Detroit  on  July  10,  1916,  after 
Santa  Isabel,  Columbus,  Glenn  Springs, 
Parral,  Carrizal,  the  President  said,  "  I 
refuse  to  butt  in  on  Mexican  affairs." 

On  June  20,  1916,  Secretary  of  State 
Lansing  addressed  a  note  to  Carranza 
opening  with  the  following  shameless 
recital : 

"...  the  lives  of  Americans  and  other  aliens 
have  been  sacrificed;  vast  properties  developed 
by  American  enterprise  and  capital  have  been 
destroyed  or  rendered  nonproductive;  bandits 
have  been  permitted  to  roam  at  will  through  the 
territory  contiguous  to  the  United  States  and 
to  seize  without  punishment  or  without  effective 
attempt  at  punishment,  the  property  of  Ameri- 
cans, while  the  lives  of  citizens  of  the  United 
States  who  ventured  to  remain  in  Mexican  ter- 
ritory or  to  return  there  to  protect  their  in- 
terests have  been  taken  and  in  some  cases 
barbarously  taken,  and  the  murderers  have 
neither  been  apprehended  nor  brought  to  jus- 
tice. ...  It  would  be  tedious  to  recount  in- 
stance after  instance,  outrage  after  outrage, 
atrocity  after  atrocity,  to  illustrate  the  true 


The  Meditations  of  a  Theorist      111 

nature  and  extent  of  the  widespread  conditions 
of  lawlessness  and  violence  which  have  pre- 
vailed. .  .  .  the  lower  Rio  Grande  has  been 
thrown  into  a  state  of  constant  apprehension 
and  turmoil  because  of  frequent  and  sudden 
incursions  into  American  territory,  and  depre- 
dations and  murders  on  American  soil  by 
Mexican  bandits  who  have  taken  the  lives  and 
destroyed  the  property  of  American  citizens, 
sometimes  carrying  American  citizens  across  the 
international  boundary  with  the  booty  seized. 
American  garrisons  have  been  attacked  at 
night,  American  soldiers  killed  and  their  equip- 
ment and  horses  stolen;  American  ranches  have 
been  raided,  property  stolen  and  destroyed,  and 
American  trains  wrecked  and  plundered." 

And  no  reparation  exacted.  Was 
there  ever  published  a  more  humiliating 
confession  of  impotency  or  indifference 
for  its  name  and  its  citizens  by  a  great 
nation ! 

Mr.  Lansing  quotes  the  words  of  Sec- 
retary Evarts  of  "  protection  "  for  its 
citizens  and  their  property  being  "  a 
paramount  duty  of  government,"  and 
recording  the  failure  of  the  Mexican 
Government  to  check  the  outrages  re- 
cited, says :  "  It  only  makes  stronger 
the  duty  of  the  United  States  to  pre- 
vent them,  for  if  the  Government  of 
Mexico  cannot  protect  the  lives  and 
property  of  Americans,  exposed  to  at- 
tack from  Mexicans,  the  Government 


178     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

of  the  United  States  is  in  duty  bound 
so  far  as  it  can,  to  do  so." 

Had  the  concluding  paragraph  of 
this  note  been  written  three  years  be- 
fore, and  enforced  once,  Americans 
would  not  have  been  murdered,  nor  the 
"  submerged  80  per  cent."  ravaged  to 
destitution.  Carranza  has  never  re- 
plied to  this  note;  he  evaded  its  ar- 
raignment by  proposing  the  commission 
idea.  He  has  never  cleared  himself  of 
responsibility  for  Carrizal. 

Yet  in  the  face  of  this  experience, 
with  millions  of  American  dollars  lost 
and  American  citizens  denied  the  pro- 
tection of  their  Government,  President 
Wilson  suggests  a  loan  for  the  bank- 
rupt Carranza  Government!  And 
Carranza,  not  to  be  outdone  by  his 
"  great  and  good "  friend  in  working 
that  easy  thing,  the  listless  American 
public,  wants  two  hundred  million  dol- 
lars as  an  emollient  for  his  lacerated 
feelings  and  the  severe  loss  his  Govern- 
ment has  sustained  through  our  "  inva- 
sion "  of  his  territory,  and  the  aid  of 
our  late  lamented  ex-Secretary  of  State 
and  President  Wilson  gave  Villa. 


DUM-DUMS  IN  THE  NAME  O?  HUMANITY 

PERHAPS,  however,  our  course  in 
the  arms  traffic  in  Mexico  is  the 
most  baffling  and  not  the  least  discred- 
itable page  in  the  story  of  this  "  policy 
of  peace  "  and  "  service  to  humanity  " 
which,  under  its  President's  guidance, 
the  United  States  entered  upon  in  Feb- 
ruary, 1914.  Space  is  wanting  here  to 
recount  its  numerous  and  varied  mani- 
festations, but,  briefly,  it  is  a  matter 
of  Congressional  Record  that  the 
United  States  has  sent  upwards  of  ten 
million  of  dollars'  worth  of  munitions 
to  Mexico  since  the  President  made  an 
operation  base  of  our  frontier  against 
the  constituted  Government  of  Mexico. 
That  means  millions  upon  millions  of 
cartridges  —  mostly  of  the  soft  nosed 
or  dum-dum  type  outlawed  by  civilised 
peoples  —  thousands  of  rifles,  thou- 
sands upon  thousands  of  pounds  of 
dynamite.  Millions  of  death  dealing 
implements  sent  in  the  name  of  human- 
Z79 


180     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

ity  to  a  country  seething  in  anarchy 
and  reeking  in  blood.  It  is  a  noble 
record ! 

It  is  also  on  file  in  the  Senate  that 
after  the  raids  upon  Santa  Isabel, 
January  12,  1916,  Columbus,  March  9, 
1916,  and  Glenn  Springs,  May  6,  1916, 
and  after  the  Government  had  complete 
knowledge  of  Carranza's  unfriendliness, 
as  explicitly  set  forth  in  Secretary 
Lansing's  note  of  June  20,  1916  — 
after  these  massacres  and  while  United 
States  troops  under  General  Pershing 
were  making  their  way  into  Mexico  in 
pursuit  of  Villa  —  three  large  ship- 
ments of  munitions,  sailing  from  New 
York,  discharged  their  cargoes  for 
Carranza  at  Veracruz,  March  18th, 
April  1st,  and  May  23rd! 

The  ambush  of  General  Pershing's 
detachment  and  obvious  treachery  of 
Carranza's  troops  at  Parral  occurred 
April  13th.  On  April  18th  Secretary 
Lansing,  according  to  unrefuted  record 
in  the  House  of  Representatives,  issued 
an  order  permitting  Carranza  to  import 
one  million  rounds  of  small  arms  am- 
munition into  Mexico! 

And  after  further  treachery  and  the 
killing  of  United  States  soldiers  at  Car- 


Dum-Dums  181 

rizal  on  June  21,  1916,  an  intellectual 
anarchist  from  Mexico,  an  intellectual 
pacifist  from  California,  and  others 
more  intelligent,  if  less  sincere,  urged 
upon  the  Administration  the  raising  of 
the  embargo  just  replaced,  and  were 
actually  granted  an  audience ! 

Lincoln  Steffens,  the  American  in- 
terpreter of  Carranza's  ambitions, 
wrote  in  the  May,  1916,  issue  of 
Eevrybody's  Magazine:  "  Huerta  .  .  . 
thought  the  Mexican  people  would  kill, 
rape  and  rob  every  American  in  Mexico 
.  .  .  and  that's  what  Villa  thought  .  .  . 
that's  what  the  men  and  the  interests 
back  of  Villa  thought  when  they  planned 
that  raid  into  New  Mexico  " ! 

The  Department  of  Justice,  by  di- 
rection of  President  Wilson,  made  an 
investigation  immediately  after  the 
New  Mexico  raid  which  proved  conclu- 
sively that  "  Villa  had  no  support  from 
Americans  except  that  which  he  ob- 
tained by  theft."  And  this  investiga- 
tion was  made  at  a  time  when  the  Ad- 
ministration was  under  fire  and  eager 
to  charge,  if  it  could  be  substanti- 
ated, that  the  pernicious  activity  of 
Americans  was  the  cause  of  much  of 
the  border  trouble.  Steffens'  implica- 


182     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

tion  is  not  only  outrageous,  but  is  based 
on  false  premises. 

Senator  Bacon,  then  Chairman  of 
Foreign  Relations  Committee,  said 
"  When  Americans  cross  that  river 
(Rio  Grande)  the  United  States  has  no 
further  interest  in  them." 

Dr.  David  Starr  Jordan  says,  "  The 
Americans  who  went  to  Mexico  did  so 
at  their  own  risk." 

Senator  Stone,  Democratic  Chair- 
man of  Foreign  Relations  Committee, 
told  those  who  exclaimed  at  the  loss  of 
Americans  on  the  Lusitana,  "  Well,  it 
was  their  own  fault ;  why  did  they  go 
on  the  boat?  They  had  been  warned." 

When  the  raping  of  nuns  by  Car- 
ranza  soldiers  was  reported  to  Bryan, 
then  Secretary  of  State,  he  replied  to 
Fathers  Kelly  and  Tiernan,  "That's 
nothing.  Two  American  women  were 
raped  by  Huerta's  soldiers  near  Tam- 
pico  in  1913." 

There  appears  to  have  grown  up 
among  us  some  strange  and  unlovely 
brands  of  Americanism. 

At  a  time  when  they  could  not  get 
them  elsewhere  we  furnished  arms  to  a 
people  in  anarchy,  thus  helping  to  make 
a  shambles  of  their  country ;  and  we 


Dum-Dums  183 

have  put  into  the  hands  of  a  treacher- 
ous soldiery  the  bullets  with  which  they 
have  killed  our  own  people. 

And  this  is  "  service  to  humanity  " ! 


WHAT  MEXICO  NEEDS 

WE  have  several  wrong  theories 
about  Mexico.  We  hear  so 
much  that  is  based  on  theory,  on  preju- 
dice; so  much  that  is  inspired  by  pre- 
conceived notions  of  Mexican  charac- 
ter and  Mexican  ambitions ;  such  a  call- 
ing of  names,  such  an  array  of  cocksure 
panaceas  for  Mexico's  ailments,  such  a 
parading  of  ignorance  —  it  is  small 
wonder  bewilderment  rules  among  us. 

Some  call  the  bloody  carnival  which 
has  held  the  country  in  its  horrid  grip, 
a  "  popular  uprising  for  land  " ;  others 
say  it  is  a  "  revolt  against  oppressive 
conditions."  Neither  is  the  essential 
motive  —  viz.  the  revolutionary  habit 
of  the  politically  ambitious  and  socially 
radical.  The  present  period  has  been 
called  "  abnormal  " ;  it  is  not.  The 
history  of  Mexico  is  filled  with  such. 
Nor  is  it  "  civil  war."  Throughout 
Mexican  history,  less  than  one  per  cent, 
of  the  population  has  ever  engaged  in 
one  of  these  revolutionary  epidemics. 
184 


What  Mexico  Needs          185 

The  great  mass  of  Mexico  is  strug-  ! 
gling  to  secure  neither  land  nor  po- 
litical rights ;  it  is  not  struggling  at 
all.  It  is  not  bloodthirsty  and  fond 
of  fighting,  as  is  ignorantly  maintained 
in  the  United  States.  Peace,  at  almost 
any  price,  is  what  this  simple  minded, 
easily  misled  multitude  is  praying  for; 
they  have  never  as  a  people  had  sym- 
pathy with  the  revolutionists,  with  any 
set  of  them,  despite  the  pathetic  stories 
of  their  struggle  for  "  life,  liberty  and 
the  pursuit  of  happiness,"  relayed  to 
Washington  by  native  revolutionary  \ 
agents.  The  common  people,  el  pueblo, 
have  no  interest  in  any  political  up- 
heaval ;  they  know  that  whether  the  lo- 
cal jefe  owes  his  appointment  to  Diaz, 
Madero,  Huerta,  or  Carranza,  they 
will  get  about  the  same  deal,  which  is 
not,  and  never  has  been,  a  square  one. 

Because  a  few  gifted  junta  propa- 
gandists discourse  earnestly  and  elo- 
quently on  "  constitution,"  "  patriot- 
ism," "  free  elections,"  we  are  led  into 
believing  that  the  Mexicans  think  as  we 
think  on  human  equity,  understand  as 
we  understand  democratic  principles, 
and  co-operate  as  we  co-operate  for 
democratic  government.  Because  of 


186    What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

the  tremendous  industrial  advance  of 
the  country  through  foreign  brain  and 
foreign  capital,  we  are  prone  to  regard 
Mexico  as  approaching  our  general 
standards  of  business  and  economic  and 
political  sense;  whereas,  in  reality  a 
very  small  class  has  a  veneer  of  culture 
and  political  method  and  economical 
sanity,  while  basically  the  nation  is 
without  public  opinion  or  political 
habit  or  democratic  thought. 

Mexico  is  filled  to  overflowing  with 
conscienceless  agitators  who  call  them- 
selves patriots,  but  their  impassioned 
speech  means  nothing,  literally  noth- 
ing. They  are  not  sincere,  they  are 
not  loyal,  they  are  not  brave ;  no  more 
than  the  'average  Mexican  do  they  know 
even  the  meaning  of  patriotism. 

It  is  the  tragedy  of  Mexico  that  a 
small  group  of  agitators,  or  "  intellec- 
tuals "  as  you  please,  should  have  the 
imagination,  but  neither  the  capacity 
nor  the  equipment  to  carry  through, 
nor  the  judgment  to  wait  on  education. 
So  every  once  in  a  while,  one  or  an- 
other group  of  such  visionaries,  heed- 
less of  the  unpreparedness  of  their  fel- 
lows, over-estimating  their  own  qualifi- 
cations, set  out  to  run  the  Government ; 


What  Mexico  Needs          187 

and  at  once  clash  with  another  group 
seeking  the  same  thing  —  indulgence  of 
political  ambition  without  thought  of 
the  "  submerged  80  per  cent." 

First  and  last,  these  groups  have  had 
a  long  trial  at  running  Mexico,  under 
the  constitution  which  "  expresses  the 
aspirations  of  the  Mexican  people,"  and 
with  control  of  courts  and  legislation. 
They  have  raised  and  cast  down  die- " 
tators,  but  not  yet  have  they  succeeded 
in  working  together  steadily  for  mu- 
tual welfare  and  their  own  advance- 
ment. A  stable  state  and  law  arid 
justice  is  not  to  be  built  on  spoliation, 
which  seems  to  have  been  the  medium 
of  reform  upon  which  they  have  chiefly 
relied. 

That  is  why  a  strong  central  gov- 
ernment is  needed,  that  peace  may  be  as- 
/s\ired  long  enough  to  give  the  people 
time    for    the    education    and    training 
they  must   have   to   fit   themselves    for 
democratic     government.      And     until 
\  Mexico   has    such    central    government 
^forceful  enough  to  command  respect  of 
life  and  property  throughout  the  land, 
)  Mexico   cannot  progress   economically, 
'  politically,  or  socially  —  for  the  pres- 
ent is  a  social,  even  more  than  a  po- 


188     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

litical  upheaval,  and  unfortunately  for 
Mexico  the  agitators  of  its  budding- 
"  middle  class  "  are  making  the  worst 
instead  of  the  best  use  of  their  small 
learning  and  big  opportunity  by  up- 
setting the  poise  of  their  countrymen 
with  inflammatory  speech  and  impossi- 
ble promise. 

So  the  first  need  of  Mexico  after 
stable  government,  is  honesty  within, 
including  particularly  the  honest  treat- 
ment of  its  lowly  class.  (1)  Honest 
courts,  which  she  has  never  had;  (2) 
Revision  of  the  land  laws  so  that  taxes 
are  fairly  levied,  that  the  holdings  of 
great  bodies  be  made  costly,  and  small 
holdings  made  easier  by  governmental 
irrigation  projects;  (3)  Control  and 
heavy  reduction  of  the  pulque  traffic ; 
(4)  Extension  and  improvement  of  the 
educational  system,  including  the  wide 
introduction  of  vocational  training 
schools  —  for  practical  training  rather 
than  their  present  "  culture  "  idea  of 
education  is  what  the  bulk  of  the  peo- 
ple should  have.  For. the  rest,  given 
honesty,  Mexico  will  grow;  her  poten- 
tialities are  great. 

Honesty,  justice, —  these  are  the 
things  that  she  must  have;  these  are 


What  Mexico  Needs          189 

the  things  which  her  leaders  seem  un- 
able to  give  her  until  they  themselves 
undergo  a  further  development  of  char- 
acter —  a  development  which  shall 
bring  them  cohesion,  stability  as  well 
as  honesty.  This  can  come  only  by 
education,  either  from  within  or  with- 
out ;  but  in  either  case  it  will  be  a  slow, 
a  very  slow  process. 

Let  the  American  never  think  he  can 
change  the  temperament  of  the  Mexi* 
can;  he  will  be  able  to  establish  justice 
and  maintain  it  —  if  he  keeps  his  eye 
open  —  but  for  the  rest  he  must  accept 
what  he  finds  as  the  character  funda- 
mental, and  build  upon  it  and  in  har- 
mony with  it,  as  the  American  business 
men  have  done.  Mexico  is  not  Iowa ; 
nor  are  the  tastes  and  the  habits  of 
the  Mexicans  those  of  -New  England. 
It  wouldn't  be  Mexico  if  they  were ;  and 
above  all  it  will  be  well  to  keep  Mexico, 
Mexico. 

The  land  question  is  a  most  im- 
portant one  in  the  regeneration  of  Mex- 
ico, but  it  would  be  just  as  impossible 
to  carry  out  in  Mexico  the  full  dream 
of  the  free  land  idealists  as  to  put  into 
practical  effect  any  other  socialist 
brain  storm  in  New  York.  Further- 


190     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

more,  there  is  not  the  general  "land 
hunger  "  which  tourist  authors  of  col- 
ourful pen  delight  to  portray  for  con- 
sumption in  the  United  States  of 
America. 

This  isn't  to  say  that  there  have  not 
been  plenty  of  instances  in  Mexico 
where  the  Indians  and  the  Mexicans 
were  outrageously  defrauded  through 
their  ignorance,  unjust  land  laws,  and 
exploiting  land  companies  of  both  na- 
tive and  foreign  personnel.  Of  such 
injustice  the  Indians  have  been  the  most 
frequent  victims,  particularly  the  Ya- 
quis  in  Sonora,  to  whom  my  sympathy 
always  flies  when  I  hear  they  have 
"  broken  out  again,"  to  avenge  the 
wrongs  done  them  by  the  Mexicans  who 
stole  their  lands  and  then  sold  them  to 
foreigners. 

Always  land  has  been  sold  in  large 
blocks  in  Mexico  with  little  thought  of 
the  small  holder.  Yet  when  the  land 
question  is  offered,  as  President  Wil- 
son has  advanced  it,  as  the  cause  of 
revolution,  it  is  well  to  consider  facts. 
Diaz  in  his  very  last  message  to  Con- 
gress suspended  the  legal  proving  up 
act  of  1884  —  the  non-compliance  with 
which,  through  ignorance,  had  led  to 


What  Mexico  Needs          191 

the  loss  of  their  property  by  the  In- 
dians —  and  appointed  a  commission  to 
make  a  thorough  study  of  the  subject. 
And  second,  Madero,  whose  presiden- 
tial campaign  was  made  on  the  free  land 
slogan,  made  but  one  attempt  at  land 
division  after  he  had  been  elected,  al- 
though his  family  was  and  is  among  the 
largest  holders  in  Mexico.  This  at- 
tempt was  the  purchase,  from  a  rela- 
tive of  the  family,  of  a  large  piece  in 
Tamaulipas  State  at  so  high  a  figure 
that  the  people  could  not  afford  to  buy 
it  when  parcelled  for  their  purchase. 

A  little  knowledge  of  Mexico  is  also 
helpful  when  discussing  its  problems. 
Many  people  think  of  Mexico  as  a  land 
of  milk  and  honey,  as  everywhere  a 
fertile  garden ;  which  is  quite  the  wrong 
picture.  Only  the  pieces  on  the  coasts 
and  alongside  water  are  naturally  of 
the  garden  variety ;  for  the  greater  part 
the  plains  are  stretches  upon  great 
stretches  where  cultivation  is  impossible 
except  by  irrigation.  Irrigation  proj-] 
ects  are  among  the  urgent  of  Mexico's  ^ 
needs. 

The  "  80  per  cent."  Mexican  does 
not  want,  cannot  use,  much  land.  All 
over  Mexico,  wherever  you  find  him, 


192     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

and  you  find  him  everywhere  water 
flows,  he  cultivates  just  so  much  as  is 
necessary  to  supply  his  wants  and  to 
leave  something  over  for  sale.  There 
are  few  watered  sections  where  this 
small  holder  is  not  found,  and  almost 
invariably,  the  land  in  excess  of  what 
he  puts  in  use,  lies  fallow. 

Guasave,  a  hamlet  of  about  five  hun- 
dred in  Sinaloa  State,  has  a  native  com- 
munity land  holding  which  is  more  or 
less  typical  of  the  average  Mexican's  at- 
titude towards  quantities  of  land  larger 
than  he  has  immediate  use  for.  This 
holding  amounts  to  about  thirty  thou- 
sand acres,  and  scarcely  seven  hundred 
are  under  cultivation ! 

Community  lands  were  originally  es- 
tablished for  protection  against  the 
bandits  that  roamed  the  country  at 
will  before  the  coming  of  Porfirio  Diaz, 
for  the  assurance  of  water  and  the  bet- 
ter working  of  the  soil.  In  most  of  the 
reclamation  projects  undertaken  by 
foreigners  on  government  and  unsur- 
veyed  and  unoccupied  land,  the  Gov- 
ernment exacted  that  a  proportion  of 
the  land  be  sold  back  to  the  natives  at 
a  given  fair  price  after  the  water  had 
been  put  on  it;  and  that  half  of 


What  Mexico  Needs          193 

the  previously  unsurveyed  government 
land,  which  the  projectors  had  sur- 
veyed as  part  of  their  contract,  be  re- 
turned free  of  expense  to  the  Govern- 
ment. The  idea  under  these  require- 
ments being  to  get  government  land 
surveyed  at  no  cost  to  the  Mexican 
Government,  and  to  bring  water  onto 
the  land,  which  otherwise  would  never 
have  been  watered  and  therefore  of  no 
use  to  the  natives,  at  a  very  small  cost 
to  the  native  purchaser,  and  no  cost  to 
the  Government  beyond  certain  grants 
from  the  enormous  quanities  of  idle 
land. 

Some  of  these  Community  lands  have 
passed  into  foreign  hands  quite  legiti- 
mately, because  of  this  disposition  of 
the  native  to  work  only  what  he  uses 
—  a  community  being  of  the  nature  of 
a  stock  company  in  so  far  as  each 
member  may  dispose  of  his  pro  rata  — 
but  the  majority  have  been  undis- 
turbed. 

In  the  States  of  Jalisco,  Morelos, 
Aguas  Calientes  and  Chihuahua,  land  is 
held  in  large  quantities  by  a  few  owners 
and  the  agrarian  question  is  justly 
pressing;  yet  the  situation  is  not  as 
black  as  painted,  for  even  in  Chihuahua 


W hat's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

something  like  fifty  thousand  natives, 
it  is  said,  are  tilling  community  land. 
In  Oaxaca  where  three  quarters  of  the 
about  one  million  population  is  Indian, 
community  land,  held  in  large  areas  be- 
yond the  cultivated  acres,  has  changed 
ownership  hardly  at  all. 

An  experiment  was  made  a  couple  of 
years  ago  in  land  division  by  the  Ha- 
cienda San  Sebastian  near  Torreon 
among  the  men  that  had  been  working 
on  the  place  for  wages,  which  throws  a 
significant  light  on  the  natives'  feeling 
on  the  "  land  question."  When  the 
plan  of  division  was  announced  the  men 
celebrated  their  good  fortune  by  sere- 
nading the  owner,  their  former  em- 
ployer, and  appeared  overjoyed  with 
the  scheme  which  not  only  gave  them 
land  but  their  share  of  the  live  stock 
on  the  ranch  as  well.  They  worked 
with  a  will  and  kept  it  up  to  the  end 
of  the  first  week,  when,  as  they  had 
been  accustomed  to  do,  they  went  to  the 
manager  of  the  hacienda  asking  for 
their  week's  wages.  "  Wages,"  ex- 
claimed the  manager,  "you're  no 
longer  working  for  me;  you're  working 
for  yourselves  and  must  get  your  money 


What  Mexico  Needs          195 

out  of  your  crop."  And  the  men  quit 
right  there  ashing  for  a  restoration  of 
the  old  order  of  things  that  gave  them 
regular  wages  every  week's  end. 

Such  represents  with  fair  correct- 
ness the  average  peon's  attitude •  on  the 
land  question.  „  They  have  not  the 
means  to  cultivate  the  land  as  a  rule, 
and  they  are  not  inclined  to  do  so  when 
they  have,  for  the  fact  is,  the  Mexican 
is  not  a  success  at  farming  or  business ; 
he  does  not  want  to  work  beyond  what 
he  must  to  live;  and  he  won't  work 
while  he  has  money  in  his  pocket.  At 
one  time  the  land  in  Morelos  was  dis- 
tributed in  great  quantities  among  the 
people  but  it  finally  got  back  again  to 
a  few  owners,  almost  into  original 
hands. 

"  Free  land  "  has  been  the  catchword 
both  in  and  out  of  Mexico  to  incite 
domestic  turbulence  and  to  arouse  for- 
eign sympathy.  It  gave  Madero  the 
border  sympathy  of  the  United  States 
which  impelled  the  resignation  of  Diaz 
—  who  remembered  his  lesson  of  1876-9 
and  believed  the  United  States  would 
be  as  exacting  now  as  then.  It  re- 
vealed President  Wilson  as  a  very  cas- 


196     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

ual  reader  of  Mexican  history,  and  will 
be  the  doom  of  any  man  or  party  that 
raises  it  for  a  shibboleth. 

The  peon's  lot  is  by  no  means  the 
unhappy  one  it  is  supposed  to  be  by 
those  who  depend  for  their  information 
on  the  sensational  and  deluding  stories, 
like  "  Barbarous  Mexico  "  for  example, 
which  so  often  find  favour  with  pro- 
vincial editors.  From  our  viewpoint  it 
is  never  ideal,  and  there  are  many  in- 
stances and  some  directions,  notori- 
ously Yucatan,  where  he  was  little  bet- 
ter off  than  a  serf.  But  speaking  gen- 
erally he  is  well  treated,  wears  about  the 
same  clothes,  eats  about  the  same  food, 
lives  in  the  same  kind  of  house,  as  his 
fellow  countrymen,  who,  independently 
till  their  own  ground.  To  the  man 
from  the  North,  the  Mexican  of  the 
tierra,  whether  working  his  own  ground 
or  that  of  his  employer,  appears  to  live 
a  wretched,  poverty  stricken  existence. 
But  if  you  live  among  them  you  will 
find  the  most  contented,  free  from  care 
people  you  have  ever  known. 

The  continued  influence  of  the  for- 
eigner and  gradual  education  will 
slowly  arouse  this  native  to  improve  his 
general  living  conditions  and  to  not 


What  Mexico  Needs          197 

spend  every  peso  y/hich  finds  its  way 
into  his  hand.  Meanwhile  the  peaceful 
state  of  his  mind  (blotting  out  the  last 
five  years)  may  well  be  envied  by  his 
compassionate  neighbours  to  the  north. 

And  what  he  needs  is  not  the  vote, 
which  would  only  strengthen  the  grip 
on  him  of  the  politician  to  thus  deepen 
his  degradation  —  but  a  square  deal, 
and  practical  industrial  education, 
training,  under  patient,  comprehending 
teachers. 

So  also  these  peons  need  a  religion. 
"  No  state  can  have  unity  unless  it  pos- 
sess a  religion "  was  what  Rousseau 
wrote  in  that  remarkable  revolutionary 
tract,  "  Contrat  Social ; "  and  none 
suits  these  people  as  the  Catholic  with 
its  vestments  and  aesthetic  ritual.  Take 
the  church  out  of  politics  and  keep  it 
out,  but  Mexico  needs  at  this  stage  of 
its  civilisation  the  acolyte  and  the  con 
fessional. 

Such  a  class,  the  overwhelming  ma- 
jority, can  make  no  intelligent  use  of 
self-government;  can  not  defend  itself 
against  its  own  until  education  has  fit- 
ted them  at  least  in  a  measure.  As 
sometime  Professor  Woodrow  Wil- 
son once  wrote,  "  Self-government  is 


198     What's  tlie  Matter  with  Mexico? 

not  a  thing  that  can  be  given  to  any 
people,  because  it  is  a  form  of  charac- 
ter and  not  a  form  of  constitution." 

How  can  we  look  for  constitutional 
election  in  Mexico  when  they  have 
neither  constitutional  method,  habit,  or 
protection?  The  Mexican  middle  class 
thinks  and  talks  much  about  rights  and 
privileges,  but  has  as  yet  small  idea  of 
duties  and  responsibilities ;  and  slight 
capacity  for  the  self-control  which  is 
essential  to  democratic  government. 
It  is  Mexico's  job  to  develop  her  mid- 
dle class,  which  must  grow  slowly  and 
without  which  there  is  no  true  democ- 
racy, for  through  it  will  come  the  polit- 
ical intelligence  of  which  Mexico  at  the 
moment  has  almost  none.  It  is  en- 
tirely natural  that  these  people,  un- 
trained and  with  but  a  handful  of  edu- 
cated among  them,  should  accept  their 
present  freedom  from  restraint  and 
President  Wilson's  Indianapolis  senti- 
ment, as  license  to  kill  and  loot  and  rape 
—  such  being  the  only  way  they  know 
how  to  celebrate  their  new  born  free- 
dom! 

For  her  political  rehabilitation  Mex- 
ico needs  forceful  men  of  unselfish  pur- 
pose and  constructive  ability;  for  the 


What  Mexico  Needs          199 

"  submerged  80  per  cent.,"  work  first, 
and  then  education  —  and  always  fair 
play.  The  Carranza  group  thus  far 
has  evolved  no  leader  of  such  character 
and  ability ;  but  such  a  one  must  arise 
or  Mexico  be  compelled  to  accept  the 
strong  helping  hand  of  another  nation 
if  she  is  to  regain  her  foothold  among 
civilised  peoples.  And  she  must  be 
made  to  regain  it,  if  not  for  her  own 
sake,  then  for  our  "  peace  and  prosper- 
ity." 


THE  COST  OF  A  DUTY-LAST  POLICY 

THERE  is  only  one  issue  in  Mexico 
for  America ;  there  has  been  but 
one  since  Woodrow  Wilson  took  oath 
to  uphold  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  and  to  defend  the  rights 
of  its  citizens:  viz.,  the  protection  of 
American  life  and  property. 

By  instance,  principle,  and  law  the 
President's  duty  lay  clear,  imperative, 
and  defined  when  he  accepted  the  great 
trust  of  the  people  March  4,  1913. 

Except  in  post-prandial  speech  how- 
ever, he  has  given  no  evidence  of  ac- 
quaintance with  that  duty.  He  has 
proclaimed  but  never  enjoined  the 
rights  of  Americans  in  Mexico.  He 
not  only  refused  to  protect  these  citi- 
zens but  used  the  influence  of  his  great 
office  to  lead  a  campaign  of  slander 
against  them  which  made  their  position 
in  Mexico  one  of  grievous  humiliation 
and  increased  danger. 

It  was  a  craven,  unrighteous,  un- 
heard of  policy  to  fling  to  the  world's 
200 


Cost  of  a  Duty-Last  Policy     201 

view;  it  was  the  very  worst  and  least 
defensible  one  that  could  be  employed 
in  Mexico.  It  destroyed  literally  the 
respect  in  which  Americans  and  the 
United  States  had  been  held;  it  em- 
boldened the  lawless  to  kill  our  citizens ; 
it  led  to  the  raids  into  our  border 
states.  It  was  the  hat-in-hand  policy 
which  every  one  of  smallest  knowledge 
of  those  peoples  knows,  is  of  all  others 
the  very  one  unsuited  to  Latin  America. 

If  the  motives  for  such  policy  were 
"  good "  as  has  been  said,  then  they 
sprung  from  ignorance  of  a  country, 
its  condition,  and  people's  character, 
which  must  be  declared  unpardonable  in 
an  executive  with  one  hundred  million 
citizens  in  his  care  and  a  clean-cut  prin- 
ciple as  exemplar. 

The  President  had  abundant  oppor- 
tunity to  extend  his  knowledge  of  Mex- 
ico, but  closed  his  ear  as  well  as  his 
official  door  to  all  who  could  give  him 
real  light.  He  had  a  preconceived 
idea,  and  he  was  determined  to  let  it 
guide  him.  And  it  has.  After  three 
years  of  this  treatment,  Mexico  is  deso- 
late and  the  "  submerged  80  per 
cent.,"  for  whose  fancied  relief  the 
President  neglected  his  own,  are  pros- 


202     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

trate;  Americans  have  been  robbed, 
ruined,  murdered,  and  our  army  patrols 
the  border  while  the  bands  play  the 
democratic  lullaby,  "  He  kept  us  out  of 
war." 

It  was  not  our  business  whether  Mex- 
ico had  a  Huerta  or  a  Carranza;  it 
was  our  business  and  our  sole  and  par- 
ticular business  to  insist  on  the  pro- 
tection of  our  citizens.  Neither  Car- 
ranza, who  has  shown  his  unfriendli- 
ness repeatedly,  nor  any  other  aspirant 
thrown  up  by  the  revolutionary  shuffle, 
should  have  been  recognised  until  a 
pledge  for  the  protection  of  foreign  life 
and  property  had  been  required. 

The  history  of  our  relations  with 
Mexico  shows  that  peace  and  safety 
have  always  reigned  when  compliance 
with  treaty  obligations  were  exacted. 
Barring  twenty-six  of  the  years  under 
Diaz  and  two  periods  of  foreign  inva- 
sion, Mexico  was  from  1810  to  1910  in 
the  same  state  approximately  as  to-day, 
minus  the  voided  paper  money,  the  high 
powered  rifle,  the  railways,  and  the  elec- 
trical communications. 

Those  twenty-six  years  of  peace  co- 
incided with  the  years  when  the  United 
States  took  the  attitude  that  our  only 


Cost  of  a  Duty-Last  Policy      203 

interest  in  Mexico  was  compliance  with 
treaty  and  international  obligations 
towards  American  citizens,  and,  as  a 
corollary  to  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  to- 
wards all  foreign  nationals  resident  in 
Mexico.  This  was  not  mere  coinci- 
dence. It  was  cause  and  effect.  Diaz 
was  no  more  amenable  or  responsive 
when  first  he  arrived  at  the  Presidency, 
than  the  others.  He  was  to  Juarez 
what  Madero  was  to  him ;  a  revolution- 
ist raised  to  president.  But  our  line 
of  soldier  presidents  stuck  to  the  Ev- 
arts  warning  —  that  "  protection  of 
its  citizens  was  a  paramount  duty  of 
government  " —  and  made  Diaz  under- 
stand that  if  he  failed  to  comply  with 
his  obligations,  the  United  States  would 
not  hesitate  to  intervene.  And  Diaz 
kept  his  obligations.  That  unflinch- 
ing, patriotic  policy  did  not  lead  to  war 
any  more  than  a  similar  discharge  of 
his  duty  by  President  Wilson  would 
have  done.  It  led  in  1879  to  peace  and 
prosperity  for  both  countries.  It  was 
a  genuine  "  service  to  humanity." 

And  now  we  have  a  Commission  in 
our  midst,  a  political  move  on  both 
sides  of  the  line, —  to  discuss  the  rights 
long  ago  established  by  this  Govern- 


204     What9 s  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

ment  to  protect  its  border  against  in- 
vasion, and  its  citizens  in  a  foreign 
country  from  pillage  and  murder. 

It  will  at  least  afford  amusement  at 
this  juncture  to  review  the  previous 
experiences  of  the  Administration  at  ne- 
gotiating with  Carranza. 

The  Niagara  Falls  mediation.  Car- 
ranza refused  to  recognise  it  so  that 
the  few  agreements  made  as  to  the  in- 
ternal affairs  of  Mexico  were  abso- 
lutely nullified  by  Carranza's  coming 
into  power  subsequently  without-  being 
bound  by  the  Conference.  The  one 
agreement  which  subsists  is  ours,  pro- 
viding that  the  United  States  shall 
never  make  claim  against  Mexico  for 
the  expense  of  the  Veracruz  occupation, 
which,  as  Secretary  Lane  has  said,  we 
entered  upon  so  Mexico  might  under- 
stand that  "  Huerta  must  go  " —  that 
Carranza  might  come  in. 

When  we  retired  from  Veracruz, 
and  turned  Mexico  over  to  anarchy, 
President  Wilson  tried  to  get  promises 
of  good  behaviour  out  of  Carranza. 
He  gave  nothing.  He  did  agree  with 
the  State  Department  not  to  charge 
merchants  second  duties  on  the  goods 
in  the  Veracruz  Customs  House.  He 


Cost  of  a  Duty-Last  Policy      205 

complied  with  this; — but  his  officials 
sold  all  the  goods  at  public  auction  and 
kept  the  money  for  the  "  cause  "  !  Un- 
cle Sam  again  held  the  bag. 

The  ABCBUG  conference  to  settle 
the  Mexican  question  —  August-Octo- 
ber, 1915,  Villa,  Zapata,  and  the  State 
of  Oaxaca  came  in.-  Carranza  was 
given  ten  days  to  come  in,  prolonged 
the  time  by  dilatory  tactics.  The  Con- 
ference asked  each  of  his  generals  sep- 
arately to  come  in.  This  prolonged  it 
still  more.  Finally  when  all  his  gen- 
erals had  refused,  Carranza  refused; 
and  then  we  recognised  Carranza! 

If  however  this  Commission  is  a  se- 
rious attempt  to  do  something  definite 
in  the  way  of  remedying  the  present 
intolerable  situation,  it  will  help  if  the 
American  members  keep  in  mind :  That 
from  1878  to  1910  we  limited  ourselves 
to  seeing  that  Mexico  treated  our  cit- 
izens and  their  interests  justly  accord- 
ing to  treaty  stipulations. 

That  from  1878  to  1910  Mexico  was 
in  a  condition  of  constantly  increasing 
peace. 

That  from  1910  we  have  ceased  to 
exact  respect  of  these  treaty  obliga- 
tions. 


206     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

That  from  1910  Mexico  has  been  in 
a  condition  of  increasing  disturbance. 

That  this  is  not  coincidence  but  cause 
and  effect. 

If  the  Commission  wastes  time  inves- 
tigating the  stories  which  have  been 
brought  from  the  border  by  "  Dr." 
Atl,  Dr.  Jordan,  and  Professor  Stef- 
fens,  their  mediations  will  be  as  fruit- 
less and  their  conclusions  as  trifling 
as  the  jeremiads  of  the  two  well  mean- 
ing but  misled  Americans. 

The  Commission  might  "  serve  hu- 
manity "  perhaps  by  finding  and  classi- 
fying the  Jordan  "  vulture  " —  the 
talkative  pacifist  having  himself  failed 
to  locate  the  sinister  bird,  after  giving 
tongue  of  his  find  too  quickly.  One 
result  is  assured  —  those  American 
Commissioners  are  going  to  know  a 
whole  lot  more  about  Mexico's  "  deli- 
cate, sensitive  race,"  before  they  have 
finished  their  seance. 

If  this  Commission  has  any  raison 
d'etre,  it  is,  first  to  ascertain  if  Car- 
ranza  is  willing  and  able  to  establish 
peace  and  safety  in  Mexico  and  to  pun- 
ish those  of  his  soldiers  and  officers 
that  have  crossed  the  border  and  killed 
Americans ;  and  second,  to  inform  Mex- 


Cost  of  a  Duty-Last  Policy      207 

ico  that  America's  friendship  from  this 
time  depends  on  the  following  three 
things : 

1.  Effective  control  by  Mexico  of  her 
border  bandits. 

2.  Protection  of  American  lives  and 
properties  and  of  their  legal  rights  in 
Mexico. 

3.  Settlement  of  foreign  and  Ameri- 
can claims. 

The  first  two  at  once  and  the  third 
as  soon  as  may  be. 

Henceforth  we  must  consider  our 
duty  to  ourselves.  Deeply  as  we  may 
be  moved  by  the  burdens  and  the  strug- 
gles of  the  Mexicans,  our  obligations  in 
the  first  instance  are  not  so  much  in 
solving  their  problems  as  in  safeguard- 
ing our  own  people.  We  have  given 
ample  evidence  of  our  patience,  of  our 
good  intent  to  Mexico  to  the  entire 
world.  Neither  "  service  to  human- 
ity "  nor  "  watchful  waiting "  has 
proved  curative.  We  can  wait  no 
longer.  Europe  from  whom  we  asked  a 
free  hand,  can  wait  no  longer.  The 
foreigners  whose  legitimate  enterprise 
and  capital  developed  Mexico  can  not, 
will  not  abandon  their  rightful  hold- 
ings. It  would  ruin  them;  it  would 


208     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

wreck  Mexico.  We  must  quit  taking 
sides  in  these  revolutions  with  first  one 
and  then  another  of  the  outcropping 
leaders  and  return  to  our  traditional 
policy  of  non-interference.  Mexico 
must  respect  her  treaty  obligations  if 
not  by  her  own  will  then  by  the  will 
of  the  United  States ;  not  through  a 
"  war  of  conquest "  but  by  an  expedi- 
tion, that  would  not  necessarily  mean 
war,  to  establish  justice  in  accord  with 
the  law  of  civilised  nations. 

And  whether  the  American  members 
of  the  Commission  say  this  or  not  to 
their  Mexican  confreres,  the  failure  of 
Mexico  to  comply  with  these  require- 
ments must  lead  to  intervention  —  dip- 
lomatic welfare  work,  and  arms  traffick- 
ers to  the  contrary  notwithstanding, — 
if  not  by  the  United  States,  then,  when 
the  Great  War  is  won,  by  England  and 
France  who  will  not  submit  to  indignity 
and  injustice  to  their  subjects. 

As  an  aid  to  peace  and  the  comfort 
of  Mexico's  "  80  per  cent.,"  it  will  be 
helpful  if  Congress  makes  the  embargo 
on  arms  permanent  until  actual  order 
and  safety  to  foreigners  has  existed  for 
one  year. 

However  disinclined  the  Administra- 


Cost  of  a  Duty-Last  Policy     209 

tion  may  be  to  face  it,  our  responsi- 
bility for  present  conditions  is  heavy. 
Because  we  shirked  our  duty  Mexico's 
problem  has  become  our  problem  too. 
These  four  years  have  been  years  of 
destruction,  murder,  humiliation.  The 
life  loss  has  been  for  the  Mexicans 
probably  two  hundred  thousand,  for  us 
nearly  four  hundred.  The  property 
loss  is  no  less  than  three  hundred  mil- 
lions. The  loss  in  education  by  the 
young  cannot  be  estimated.  The  loss 
of  the  habit  of  peace  is  beyond  com- 
putation. Because  President  Wilson 
twice  notified  the  world  of  our  sponsor- 
ship for  Mexico,  the  United  States  is 
confronted  with  the  probability  of  be- 
ing held  pecuniarily  responsible  for  the 
losses  suffered  by  foreigners. 

Had  the  United  States  remained  on 
the  straight  and  historic  line  of  limit- 
ing her  relations  with  Mexico  to  an  in- 
sistence that  treaty  provisions  and  the 
law  of  nations  be  lived  up  to,  the  dev- 
astation and  the  embarrassment  could 
have  been  averted.  President  Wilson 
took  the  side  track  of  solicitude  for  the 
welfare  of  aliens  in  an  alien  land  in- 
stead and  we  are  off  the  main  track 
of  international  procedure  and  headed 


210     What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

for  the  very  calamity  he  sought  to  es- 
cape. 

Such  is  the  penalty  for  putting  duty 
last. 


THE  ANSWER 

WHEN  American  citizens  working 
in  Mexico  under  treaty  rights 
needed  and  asked  the  protection  of  their 
Government,  they  were  made  the  tar- 
get of  official  slander  and  told  to  get 
out.  In  response  to  the  killing  of 
Americans  and  the  destruction  of  their 
property,  the  President  wrote  notes, 
as  recounted  by  Secretary  of  State 
Lansing  under  date  June  20,  1916.  No 
American  can  travel  Mexico  to-day  and 
see  with  his  own  eyes  the  plight  of  the 
lowly,  and  hear  with  his  own  ears  de- 
scription of  what  his  fellow  country- 
men and  women  have  endured,  and  not 
hang  his  head  in  very  shame  for,  his 
puissant,  supine  Government. 

There  are  men  who  call  this  "  peace 
with  honour." 

We  have  both  duties  and  rights  in 
Mexico ;  we  neglected  the  one  and  failed 
to  exact  the  other.  We  trespassed 
upon  the  rights  of  the  Mexicans  and  we 
did  not  assert  the  rights  of  our  own 
211 


What's  the  Matter  with  Mexico? 

citizens.  We  departed  from  precedent 
long  established  by  disregarding  the 
principles  and  the  spirit  of  our  Ameri- 
can doctrine,  and  allowed  Mexico  to  ig- 
nore the  plain  and  long  respected  letter 
of  her  own  treaties  with  us. 

That's  what's  the  matter  with  Mex- 
ico. 

We  have  been  just  neither  to  our  own 
citizens  nor  helpful  to  the  Mexicans 
whose  "  uplift "  we  set  out  to  accom- 
plish. Our  citizens  are  ruined  and  the 
"  submerged  80  per  cent."  are  passing 
through  the  darkest  chapter  in  their 
history.  We  interfered  with  their  do- 
mestic affairs  when  we  should  not  have 
done  so ;  and  we  have  not  interfered 
in  the  interest  of  our  own  people  when 
we  should  have  done  so.  We  have 
preached  peace;  and  handed  the  Mex- 
icans rifles.  We  have  chanted  "  serv- 
ice to  humanity  "  and  abandoned  our 
own  people.  We  have  made  of  Mexico 
an  experimental  station  for  sociologi- 
cal theories,  and  now  we  must  pay  the 
rent. 

Two  things  we  have  failed  to  do,  and 
so  failing  have  got  ourselves  into  the 


The  Answer 

A, 

worst  muddle  in  our  history:  (1)  We 
have  failed  to  mind  our  own  business ; 
and  (2)  we  have  failed  to  mind  our  own 
business. 

And  that  is  why  America  is  in  arms 
and  Congress  is  voting  a  bond  issue  of 
one  hundred  and  thirty  millions  of  dol- 
lars to  pay  for  the  war  which  Presi- 
dent Wilson  kept  us  out  of ! 


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